Chronology – André Kertész and Szigetbecse
1894
Born as Andor Kertész in Budapest on July 2.
His birthplace stood on the former Bulyovszky (now Rippl-Rónai) Street, next to Epreskert. Today the building of the MÁV Hospital is situated there. His father, Lipót Kertész (ca. 1842-1909) was a thorough connoisseur of the classics of Hungarian literature but he was not as much of a commercially successful bookseller; he also worked at the stock exchange and owned a couple of plots as well. His mother, Ernesztin Hoffmann was selling coffee on Teleki Square.
c.1900
Spent a part of his childhood and youth at his relatives, the family of Mihály Klöpfer. In their attic, he found a lot of old German family publications illustrated with woodcuts and lithography. One such newspaper was Die Gartenlaube. Looking at these pages, he developed the desire to take similar images someday.
1906
After a happy childhood, the 12-year-old Andor ran away from home to seek (and discover) the world around him. In his luggage, he took a few books and his flute with him.
He attended the elementary school on Szív Street and later the Realschule on Reáltanoda Street, where Mr. Kadosa was his form-master.
1909
Their father died of tuberculosis. The education of the three boys were taken managed by their guardian, Lipót Hoffmann (1855-1925), their mother’s brother. Hoffmann worked at the stock exchange, which left a mark on the career decisions of the boys.
1912
Graduated from a trading school, however, he was already sure by then that he wanted to make a living from photography. He attended the Academy of Commerce in Budapest. He bought his first camera, an Ica-Platten-Camera Ariso No 4., from his first salary. He taught himself how to take, develop or enlarge photographs. Some of his first images are also exhibited in this exhibition. (Sleeping boy; Snowy street scene)
Upon completing his studies, his uncle placed him at the Budapest Stock and Commodity Exchange, where he worked as a correspondent – a job he did not quite like. He spent a lot of time in Szigetbecse, taking pictures of the region.
1914
Photographed in Szigetbecse and Tiszaszalka (at his cousin’s) with a Voigtländer Alpin 9×12 cm folding plate camera with f6.3 lens that worked with both glass negative and pack film. The photos* Hungarian puszta, Village well, Young swineherd in Becse, Neighbours, and Szigetbecse, a tree reflected in the back water were taken around this time.
He was so much against living a clerk’s life that his family decided to rent the finance minister Dr. Lóránt Hegedűs’s land for Kertész to farm there.
He joined the army as a volunteer when WWI broke out. He fought in the 26th Infantry Regiment as a chevron-ensign at the Polish and Russian fronts.
1915
At the beginning of the year, he studied at the officer-candidate school of Görz in Austria. On January 1, he took his photograph Soldier writing a letter. On July 19, he shot the image Forced march.
At the end of the year, his left hand was seriously wounded from a shot to the chest at the Polish front. For almost a year he was partially paralyzed with his whole arm in a splint, and he also suffered from typhus. He was first hospitalized in Budapest, then in Esztefom, where he intermittently spent almost two years.
He and his comrades from his regiment decided to put together a small volume from his pictures and donate the expected proceeds to the Red Cross. In the end, only a series of postcards were made from the phots. By then, Kertész also had a Goerz Tenax 4×6.5 cm camera equipped with a 75mm lens.
1916
Submitted his self-portrait taken at the front to the war-related drawing and photo contest of the humorous publication Borsszem Jankó. In the photo, Kertész is delousing himself, while bullets are whizzing over and around his head. According to the results of the competition published in the February 20, 1916 issue of Borsszem Jankó, Kertész was the 9th out of 10 winners.
1917
Photographed in and around Esztergom. Two of his photographs – Tale and Peasants in Sunday dress, talking, Pomáz – were published in the March 25, 1917 issue of Érdekes Újság as photos submitted to the publication’s war photo competition.
1918
Took images in Bratislava on March 2, two of these photos are featured in the exhibition now. From September till the end of October he served in Braila, Romania. On the last days, he left for home and, while on the road, he took pictures in Brasov. His negatives from the battlefields, with the exception of a few, got destroyed during the Aster Revolution. These images included Poland in July-August, 1915; Austria January 1915, and July 12, 1917; Russia; Albania in August 1918; and Romania in the fall of 1918.
Different sources cite 12, or 24 postcards that were based on Kertész’s photographs. One can easily image that the negatives used for the making of the postcards never made it back to Esztergom but disappeared in the printing house during the chaos and turmoil of the war and then the Aster Revolution. Some of his images, however, remained: Horses in the street, Little geese, Priests in their private forest, Girl carrying water, When the War was over…, Principessa Christiana, Old port. Braila; Emmy under a tree, Emmy, Braila.
1919
From June to September, he spent his holiday in Szigetbecse, taking pictures there and in Dunaharaszti as well.
He worked at the Budapesti Giro- és Pénztáregyelet (finance institution), where he met for the first time his (second) wife, Erzsébet Sali (Salamon). Kertész’s first photo of her shows her drawing among peasant children in the country-side.
Andor Kertész became friends with young artists, painters such as Vilmos Aba-Novák, István Szőnyi, Erzsébet Korb, Imre, Soós, Czump Imre, Károly Patrkó, Emil Novotny, sculptor Pál Pátzay, and graphic artist Gyula Zilzer. He formulated the idea of going to Paris around this time but his family would not let him.
1921
Spent the summer is Tiszaszalka in June. In July, he visited his old beekeeper friend, Ede Pabst in Abony and that was when he took one of his most well-known photographs, A blind musician.
1922
Took photographs in Törökbálint on August 19. Two of these shots are exhibited: Törökbálint on a late afternoon in summer, On the way home.
The only remaining photograph by him of his relatives in Szigetbecse: Mihály Klöpfer, Margit and Rózsika (My uncle and his family, with whom I spent the summers)
1924
At the 4th Artistic Photography Exhibition at the Museum of Applied Arts in May, his photographs Kálvin Sqaure, Sping and Spring Mood were exhibited as he was a member of the National Association of Hungarian Amateur Photographers. He received a certificate only and not a medal as he was not willing to make bromoil prints from his photos.
The cover photo Kertész mentioned entitled The night at Tabán was published on June 26, 1925. In this nighttime shot his brother Eugene (Jenő) can be seen who, according to Kertész, valiantly bore the trials of the eight- to ten-minute long exposure time.
1925
His family agreed to travel to Paris. His uncle and guardian Lipót Hoffman died soon after. Kertész was 31 years old when he arrived in Paris, where he spent 11 years.
1936
Traveled to the U.S. upon the invitation of the Keystone Press Agency. He only wanted to spend a year there but the war and his personal circumstances made him stay.
The exhibition features 12 French and 7 American images as well, which are also part of the collection donated to Szigetbecse.
1948
Visited Hungary and traveled to Szigetbecse as well with his brother. Members of the council were rather puzzled by him but he found his former playmate, Kati Stromayer. Kertész donated his book Our Friends the Animals to the village with the dedication ‘With gratitude for the wonderful childhood’ – the book has since disappeared.
1963
The negatives he left in Paris and believed to have lost turned up. Many of these were glass negatives made in Hungary.
In October Kertész traveled to Hungary as a guest of the Association of Hungarian Photographers.
1971
68 of his photographs were exhibited at his solo exhibition in the Hungarian National Gallery. Kertész traveled to Hungary for the opening and visited Szigetbecse again, where he took photographs of Kati Stromayer and her husband. The family has preserved the photograph, which is also featured in the exhibit.
1982
His album with 187 photographs – many of Szigetbecse – and Hilton Kramer’s introduction was published in Boston.
1984
On March 10, he traveled to Hungary as the guest of honor at the Budapest Spring event. On March 13, he visited Szigetbecse. Then he wrote: “Here I am, at the dearest site of my childhood memories and, with a heavy heart, I remember those beautiful memories that bind me here. André Kertész, Sziget Becse, March 13, 1984.”
On March 14 he accepted the Medal for Ráckeve from Béla Raffay, President of the Chamber. It was difficult to explain to him that he got the medal for his stay in Szigetbecse as that time the two settlements were administratively merged. On March 15 his exhibition opened in the Vigadó Gallery. On March 16 Pál Losonczi, chairman of the Presidential Council, awarded him with The Order of the Flag of the Republic of Hungary. (He was the only photographer who ever received this honor.) On March 18, after almost seventy years, he returned to Esztergom. With his camera in hand, he revisited the locations of his former shots: Castle Hill, Saint Thomas Hill, the island. On March 20, András Kepes made a TV interview with him for the program Studio ’84. The 45-minute portrait was broadcast the next day. (The film is featured in the exhibition.)
On March 21, he traveled to Paris. Edited by János Bodnár, Főfotó published the volume André Kertész Magyarországon (André Kertész in Hungary). On July 30, he once again came to Hungary with a French television crew who filmed a portrait film about his life and visited the most important sites of Kertész’s life in Hungary. In the morning of July 31 Kertész dedicated his book in front of the Fotóművészeti (Photo Art) Gallery in Váci Street. Many people were lining up before the gallery to get their copy signed. In the afternoon, he went to Ráckeve, where a lunch was given in his honor at the Fekete Holló restaurant. Later in Szigetbecse he paid a visit to Marton Wandracsek’s cellar which he remembered from his childhood. He also went by the building at 34 Kossuth Street assigned for the memorial museum, as well as by the lake where he took his last photograph of Becse. At 6 o’clock in the afternoon, his exhibition opened at the Petőfi Cultural Center in Szigetbecse.
1985
On January 10 Kertész sent a telegram from New York to Ráckeve, in which he reiterated his promise of sending 50 original prints as soon as they were done. On March 11 the operative committee for the establishment of the André Kertész photography collection was formed in Ráckeve. Here the functions of the memorial museum were also defined. On July 6 Károly Szelényi took the 120 photos donated by Kertész from New York, along with the document governing their use. The document also indicated that the right to the Hungarian release of his book Nos Amies les bêtes (Our Friends the Animals) originally published in Paris was also granted to Szigetbecse. On September 29 Kertész died in New York.
1986
On November 14, The André and Elizabeth Kertész Foundation, Inc., donated three pieces of furniture and eight boxes of personal items and ornaments to the André Kertész Memorial Museum. The items were from Kertész’s New York apartment as seen on many of his Polaroid images taken when he was older.
1987
On May 30, the André Kertész Memorial Museum was opened in Szigetbecse.