“PEOPLE WHO KNOW PHOTOGRAPHY REVERE ANDRÉ KERTÉSZ”: SCARCE FIRST EDITION OF MA FRANCE, FROM THE LIBRARY OF PHOTOGRAPHER PETER TURNLEY

KERTÉSZ, André. Ma France. (Paris): La Manufacture, (1990). Large quarto, original gilt-stamped gray cloth, original photographic dust jacket. $450.

First edition, a scarce retrospective collection featuring works by Kertész from the 1920s to the 80s, published in conjunction with a 1990 Paris exposition honoring the photographer, with over 190 pages of tritone plates, including portraits of Chagall, Mondrian and others, a series on his 1927 exhibit at the Paris gallery, “Au Sacre du Printemps,” numerous in-text photographs and several sequences on a favorite theme—what became known as the “Kertész distortion nude.”

“People who know photography revere André Kertész as one of the medium’s great practitioners… What distinguished Kertész’s work is not a particular visual style or signature subject matter, but its emotional resonance.” Born in Budapest, Kertész (1894-1985) moved to Paris in 1925, where he “made some of the most memorably poetic pictures of Paris ever” before moving to America in 1936 (New York Times). Ma France includes not only Kertész’ earliest work, but also selections from “the best of his humanist photography, made between 1925 and 1935 when he lived in Paris” (Parr & Badger I:200). Scarce first edition, rarely found; published coincident with a Paris exhibit at the Palais de Tokyo, held from May to August 1990. With essays in French by Sandra Phillips, Isabelle Jammes, Pierre Bonhomme, Jean-Claude Lemagny and Michel Frizot. See Roth, 144; Open Book, 138. From the collection of acclaimed photojournalist Peter Turnley, who has covered “almost every important international news event of the last 15 years” for Newsweek and Harper’s Magazine (New York Times); signed by Turnley on the front colophon page.

A fine copy with a memorable association.