Andre Kertesz in Europe, James Hyman Gallery, London

Hungarian photographer Kertesz's double emigration - to Paris in the 1920s, then New York in 1936 - followed the standard trajectory of eastern European Jewish artists who brought a Modernist sensibility to mid-century America. Although he never really mastered English - "I write with light" - he achieved recognition and moved into a 12th-floor apartment on Fifth Avenue, from where he shot his most famous series: the enraptured, meditative, sumptuously formal pattern of silhouetted leafless trees against snow in Washington Square Park. "Each time Andre Kertesz's shutter clicks, I hear his heart beating," said Henri Cartier-Bresson.

So it is with Kertesz's precisely constructed, sharply delineated, whimsical European compositions here, ranging from experiments with an ICA box camera in the 1910s - he photographed gypsies and peasants, already recording a way of life verging on obsolescence - to idiosyncratic shots of art and artists on visits to Britain in the 1980s. Some, such as a 1926 profile portrait of Mondrian in Paris, are well-known, but many later works are displayed for the first time. They reveal how Kertesz kept his own modernist, geometric vision - "The Royal Albert Hall", with the building's opulent curves offset by straight lines of park benches; "Jacob Epstein's 'Genesis' at the Whitworth Art Gallery", where the bulbous fertility sculpture contrasts with the museum's stark vertical columns - in face of changing fashions. Most moving are old-age portraits, built up through objects and interiors, caught between celebration and melancholy: "Henry Moore's Shadow", "Henry Moore's Studio with Elephant Skull and Seated Figure". The last piece commemorates Kertesz's visit, aged 90, to his native land: under thunderous skies, "Hortobagy Country, Hungary (Man on a Bicycle)" features a lone rider on a rain-glistening road, disappearing into infinity.

jameshymangallery.com, 020 7494 3857, from Wednesday to June 13

Photograph: James Hyman Gallery

© The Financial Times Limited 2015. All rights reserved.
FT and Financial Times are trademarks of the Financial Times Ltd.
Not to be redistributed, copied or modified in any way.
Euro2day.gr is solely responsible for providing this translation and the Financial Times Limited does not accept any liability for the accuracy or quality of the translation

ΣΧΟΛΙΑ ΧΡΗΣΤΩΝ

blog comments powered by Disqus
v