signed, dated 1933 and inscribed #40 on the reverse; titled and dated on a label, further titled and dated on an exhibition label on the backing on the reverse. Printed later
7.38 × 9.62 in (18.7 × 24.4 cm) (image)
(including Buyer's Premium)
Collection of the Artist, New York Collection of the Winnipeg Art Gallery
"André Kertész–Perception d'une vie entière/A Lifetime of Perception", The Montreal Museum of Fine Arts, 24 September-14 November 1982, no. 15 "André Kertész: A Lifetime of Perception", Canadian Centre of Photography, Toronto, 7 April-8 May 1983 "The Collection on View: André Kertész: Shadow Marks", Winnipeg Art Gallery, 12 February-2 October 2011
Hilton Kramer "Introduction" in Nicolas Ducrot, "Distortions: André Kertész", New York, 1976, unpaginated Ben Lifson and Jane Corkin, "André Kertész: A Lifetime of Perception", Scarborough, Ontario, 1982, page 167
André Kertész’s "Distortions" series revolutionized modern art photography. In 1927, Kertész was experimenting with distortion in a series of portrait heads, of which only one image from the series survives, as Hilton Kramer describes: “a haunting image of a woman’s face, with strong, overlarge eyes, held in a hand that acts as a pedestal for the sculptural configuration of her redrawn features”. There is a direct link between his early experiments with portrait distortion and the distortions of 1933, as Kramer continues, “One notes with interest that the image is a tender one, without the slightest suggestion of anything cruel or grotesque, for this is a key to the 'Distortions' of the early thirties.” In 1933, when the racy French magazine "Le Sourire" commissioned him to make a series of figure studies, his full exploration of a distorted body would be fully realized. As new French magazines, such as "Vu", "Voilà" and "Regards", gained popularity, they turned to pioneering photographers of the time to fill their pages, including Kertész, Man Ray and Germaine Krull. Using a funhouse mirror from an amusement park, Kertész spent a month making about two hundred negatives. Interestingly, it was feared that due to the severe oxidation of the original glass-plate negatives, they would be lost forever, but were eventually restored in the 1970s, honouring the artist’s devotion to his subject. This print was produced by the artist, André Kertész, and chosen from his collection in New York by Jane Corkin for the Toronto exhibition "André Kertész: A Lifetime of Perception".
