André Kertész
1933
Distortion #51

Gelatin silver print
9.6 x 6.9 cm (3 3/4 x 2 11/16 ins)
 
Metropolitan Museum of Art
Purchase, The Horace W. Goldsmith Foundation Gift, through Joyce and Robert Menschel, 1987, Accession Number: 1987.1180, © The Estate of André Kertész / Higher Pictures
 
Curatorial description (Accessed: 12 September 2015)
 
Although Kertesz had long been interested in mirrors, reflections, and the idea of distorting the human figure, he did not seriously investigate their photographic possibilities until 1933, when the risqué French magazine Le Sourire commissioned him to make a series of figure studies. Using a funhouse mirror from a Parisian amusement park, Kertesz, who had never photographed nudes before, spent four weeks making about two hundred negatives. A handful of these Distortions, including this one, are compellingly surreal and unnerving--not unlike Munch's famous painting The Scream of 1893 (National Gallery, Oslo).
 
LL/61417