André Kertész From My Window, Plate 53, 1978 Gelatin silver print Following the loss of his wife Elizabeth to lung cancer in 1977, Kertész was alone in New York, a city in which he never felt truly connected. Once again he retreated into the safe confines of his apartment. Fortunately, a small glass bust, whose figure reminded him of Elizabeth, became a talisman for his recovery process as he repeatedly photographed it. Turning to a relatively new technology and autonomous process, the Polaroid SX-70, Kertész worked through his overwhelming grief, obsessively shooting the bust alone and placing it among other artifacts he and Elizabeth had collected together over the years. Taken from within his apartment, he photographed many of these still-lifes by placing personal objects against cityscape backgrounds, which were often reflected and modulated by glass surfaces. It is in these Polaroids where he resurrects and reworks old ideas and concepts, and explores new ones generated by his reaction to this special camera itself. They are powerful metaphorical and literal symbols of life, love, loss, death and mortality.
