7.9 x 10.5 image on 8.2 x 13.2 paper,

carte postal

tipped to 27.94 x 35.56 cm archival board

Estate #P0043 E

Printed 1927

moving to Paris in 1925, Kertész continued the photographic practice he had begun honing in his native Hungary. This early, vintage carte postale from 1927 is a rare surviving example of the photographic postcards that he worked with during the mid-late 1920s. Kertész would contact print his negatives onto small silver gelatin postcard stock, which came ready made with 'carte postale' text on the back.

Kertész worked with this small size for a number of reasons, not least the comparatively lower price to printing on larger sheets of paper. However, their small size and transient nature - lending themselves to something curator Maria Morris Hambourg has recently deemed an 'exhibition in a pocket' - means that many examples of Kertész's earliest, most intimate images of Paris have become extremely rare. In this self-portrait, we see a serious Kertész, initials laid out on the table before him, confronting the lens and surrounded by books and hung pictures, as if to say that the modest room which he has chosen should not be a reflection of his intelligence and drive to succeed.