We all owe something to Kertész.
Mondrian's Eyeglasses and Pipe, 1926. André Kertész. Hungarian born Andre Kertesz has been living in Paris less than a year when he visited the studio of the Dutch painter Piet Mondrian. Mondrian's Eyeglasses and Pipe is among a group of beautiful still lifes that the photographer took that day. Within the austere clarity of these simple geometric forms- common manufactured items that Mondrian used daily - Kertesz captured the essence of this master of abstraction, both his aspiration to order and his slight and human divergences from it. The insistent angularity of the stark white table is offset by the sculptural curves of the glasses, bowl, and pipe, curves that were rigorously excluded from Mondrian's art. Ever since Kertesz began photographing, in 1912, and throughout his long career, he sough the revelation of the found still life, of an abstract or resonating image discovered in the elliptical view. His signature practice of snaring and fixin...