Portrait of Ms R., 1926

About the Work

Minuscule dimensions, but with great effect. The mysterious Mrs. R. exudes a strange mix of distance and intimacy, strength and fragility. Her heavy-lidded eyes are half closed and her melancholy gaze cuts straight through the onlooker. Kertész’s photographs are steeped in silent poetry. Like almost no other photographer, he succeeded in obtaining ever-new facets from reality. Kertész was already highly regarded in the 1920s by artists in his adoptive city of Paris.