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Lot Essay
In 1929 Kertsz attended a congress of marionettes in Lige. The photographs he made were reproduced in the Mnchener Illustrierte Presse, a main stream, popular culture magazine, edited by Stephan Lorant and L"Art Vivant, a journal edited by Florent Fels and concerned with presenting photography as a fine art and not simply as a complement to text as it was in the Mnchener Illustrierte.
The subject of marionettes related directly to other folk art interests of Kertsz. His Hungarian roots enstilled in him a natural respect for folk art, which is reflected in his images of the marionette congress. Participants from all over Europe came as well as American artists, such as the writer Meyer Levin. The print offered here, originates from the collection of Levin. Sandra Phillips comments, "These photographs reflect his curiosity in the subject, and an admiration for the craft in making and presenting them...There is a surprising, and disquieting, tenderness between the puppets themselves, and their masters. These little figures are not only folk art, but artful imitations of human lives. Though they purport to document folk culture, they also reflect the surrealist fascination with the manikin, the shadow, and the mirror as metaphors of human reality." ("Marionette Photographs by Andr Kertsz", Performing Arts Journal, #21, 1983, pp. 115-120.)
The subject of marionettes related directly to other folk art interests of Kertsz. His Hungarian roots enstilled in him a natural respect for folk art, which is reflected in his images of the marionette congress. Participants from all over Europe came as well as American artists, such as the writer Meyer Levin. The print offered here, originates from the collection of Levin. Sandra Phillips comments, "These photographs reflect his curiosity in the subject, and an admiration for the craft in making and presenting them...There is a surprising, and disquieting, tenderness between the puppets themselves, and their masters. These little figures are not only folk art, but artful imitations of human lives. Though they purport to document folk culture, they also reflect the surrealist fascination with the manikin, the shadow, and the mirror as metaphors of human reality." ("Marionette Photographs by Andr Kertsz", Performing Arts Journal, #21, 1983, pp. 115-120.)