Thu, Jan 23, 2025
6:30–7:30 pm
Leslie Cheek Theater
$8 (VMFA members $5)
Explore the wildly creative but often misunderstood period in the life of Hungarian-born American photographer André Kertész. Interweaving Kertész’s photographs, particularly self-portraits, with the artist’s life story, Robert Gurbo, President of the André and Elizabeth Kertész Foundation, will unveil a powerful and brooding body of art hidden beneath the surface of seemingly simple images. The exhibition American, born Hungary: Kertész, Capa, and the Hungarian American Photographic Legacyis on view at VMFA Oct 5, 2024–Jan 26, 2025.
Livestream option for this talk is available.
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PARTICPANTS BIOS
Robert Gurbo, president and managing director of the Estate of André Kertész and The André and Elizabeth Kertész Foundation, met Kertész while working as a photographer on the CCF-CETA Artists Project in 1978. He worked with Kertész during the last seven years of the photographer's life and has spent the last 39 years meticulously combing through his archive. Gurbo is the co-author of the catalogue that accompanied the 2005 National Gallery exhibition, André Kertész, published by Princeton University Press. He is also the editor and author of André Kertész: The Early Years and André Kertész: The Polaroids. In addition, he organized the reissue of Kertész’s seminal book, On Reading. He has contributed to numerous publications and catalogues; lectured on André Kertész throughout the world; and is an advisor to museum curators, gallerists, and collectors.
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IMAGE Lost Cloud, 1937, André Kertész (Kertész Andor), (American, born Hungary, 1894–1985), gelatin silver print, 8 1/2 x 5 3/8 in. Museum of Modern Art, New York, Gift of the Artist, 312.1965 ©️ 2024 Estate of André Kertész