Current and coming: You’ve got mail, from André Kertész
Satiric Dancer by André Kertész (1894–1985), 1927. Family holdings of Nicholas and Susan Pritzker. All objects illustrated are © Estate of André Kertész 2021. Chez Mondrian by Kertész, 1926. Art Institute of Chicago, Julien Levy Collection, gift of Jean and Julien Levy. Before photographer André Kertész began to exhibit his work alongside that of Man Ray and Berenice Abbott, or to field high-profile assignments from magazines such as Collier’s, Harper’s Bazaar, and House and Garden, he was just another immigrant in postwar Paris. He’d arrived in 1925 almost penniless, intent on making his way with his camera, a device he’d been practicing with since the war years, when he would write to his family on the backs of pictures he shot. In Paris, rather than adopt the photojournalist’s glossy paper or the platinotype of art photographers, Kertész returned to the familiar format of the postcard, or carte postale. These small, idiosyncratic art objects form the content of a current exhibition at the High Museum of Art, André Kertész: Postcards from Paris, which draws on a particular collecting strength of the Art Institute of Chicago, where the show was organized and debuted. Self-Portrait by Kertész, 1927. Estate of André Kertész. If Kertész’s choice of medium (selected in part for its cheapness) might suggest a touristic, snapshot-oriented approach, the work he produced during the three years following his arrival in Paris clearly demonstrates otherwise. Fastidiously composed, framed, and exposed pictures of friends and acquaintances, cityscapes, and interiors show Kertész’s intuitive grasp of artistic conventions as well as his attunement to the changes that those practices were undergoing in a city brimming with artistic ferment. In the photographer’s signature work from those years, Chez Mondrian, the creamy, textured carte postale paper creates a visual link between this image and the painterly work of