INSCRIBED BY ANDRÉ KERTÉSZ IN THE YEAR OF PUBLICATION

KERTÉSZ, André. André Kertész. The Manchester Collection. (Lausanne, Switzerland): Manchester Collection, (1984). Quarto, original stiff photographic wrappers. $1200.

First edition in wrappers, a wonderful photographic tribute to Kertész on his 90th birthday, inscribed by him in the year of publication on the title page, “To John Toth / A Kertész / Aug. 17 1984,” with 297 duotone images comprising photographs selected by Kertész for a major collection of his work at England’s National Museum of Photography.

Asked to select a Kertész photograph to accompany his commentary within, renowned photographer Henri Cartier-Bresson wrote, “I choose the next picture coming out of his camera. Each time André Kertész’s shutter clicks I feel his heart beating.” Widely “hailed as the founder of the humanist documentary approach” (Parr & Badger II:200), Kertész was praised by critic John Szarkowski for a vision rich with “a sense of the sweetness of life, a free and childlike pleasure in the beauty of the world” (Looking at Photographs, 92). First edition, first printing, published in commemoration of Kertész’s 90th birthday. First edition in wrappers, published same year as first cloth edition, no priority established. Without dust jacket as issued. See Roth, 114.

A fine copy, scarce inscribed.