Andre Kertesz (1894-1985) always insisted he was born to be a photographer. But a fascinating travelling retrospective of the work of this Budapest-born artist shows that his path turned out to be far more circuitous than he had expected—and all the more interesting for it. Kertesz's mother gave him his first camera as a school-leaving present in 1912. From then on, it would be a semi-permanent appendage to the awkward Hungarian youth who found it hard to express his ideas in any other way. He packed his camera in his knapsack when he was conscripted into the first world war, snapping not the battles but soldiers at moments of rest and play. When he returned to Budapest in 1918, he delighted in photographing the antics of his handsome brother Jeno—famously captured in flight as Icarus jumping from a cliff-as well as the studios and work of his circle of avant-garde artist friends.
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