“THE BEAUTY OF THE WORLD AND THE PRECIOUSNESS OF SIGHT”: SCARCE KERTÉSZ MUSEUM CATALOGUE

KERTÉSZ, André. André Kertész. (Paris): Contrejour, (1977). Slim octavo, original photographic stiff paper covers. $350.

First edition catalogue of the 1977 exhibition at the Musée National d’Art Moderne, with 76 full-page halftones. From the collection of award-winning photojournalist Peter Turnley.

“In a career that spanned 70 years, Kertész created images of ordinary life in a style without pretension. He changed the way photographers and picture magazines looked at the world and defined the use of the handheld camera” (McDarrah, 257). “There is in the work of Kertész another quality less easily analyzed, but surely no less important. It is a sense of the sweetness of life, a free and childlike pleasure in the beauty of the world and the preciousness of sight” (Szarkowski, 92). During his residence in New York, Kertész had become all but reclusive. This Paris exhibition was among the events that “opened the gates for this self-imprisoned bird to fly” (Chapnick, 24). Text in French. See Roth, 114; Parr & Badger I: 200. From the collection of Peter Turnley, acclaimed photojournalist for Newsweek, Life and Harper’s Magazine, who has covered “almost every important international news event of the last 15 years” (New York Times); signature of Turnley on the title page.

Fine condition, with only a bit of wear to original paper covers.