Why prints so small ?

[QT Luong]

I am currently reading the Kertesz catalog from NGA/Princeton, and I noticed many plates are reproduced tiny (think 2 inches across) on a large blank page, with many more 4x6 or less. Those include some of his well-known images that I had seen before reproduced at a more decent size. Looking at the exhibition checklist, it appears that those are the sizes of the exhibition prints. I assume there is some value in using what are probably vintage prints, but wouldn't Kertesz be better served by larger prints ? From the text, it appears that Kertesz often used enlargers (unlike some large format photographers). Why would curators insist on prints so small as to be barely legible ? Why would Kertesz make them that way in the first place ?

[Dennis]

I think you have to assume that he made them that small because he liked them that way. Given that he decided to show his work so small, it would make sense for the book to represent them that way. I know he did some work with polaroid and it seems he did some of his work on a 6x6 camera. Perhaps he wanted the quality of contact prints.
Dennis

[Bill_1856]

I've always presumed that the tiny prints were made as proofs at a time when he didn't have enlarger facilities available to him.
Except in a historical context, it seems to me rather arrogant to present them without also showing more typical sized reproductions, (however the terms "arrogant" and "Kertesz" are not completely unknown to each other in the literature).

[jnantz]

maybe it was a collection of his early work ?
they were contact prints from really small negatives ...
a book came out a few years ago ( 2005 ) called André Kertész: The Early Years (http://www.amazon.com/Andr%C3%A9-Kert%C3%A9sz-Early-Andre-Kertesz/dp/0393061604/ref=sr_1_17?ie=UTF8&qid=1248395801&sr=8-17)
and all the images in the book were small like you describe
and from i remember the editors said they wanted to keep the images
small, not enlarged because that is the way they originally were ...
(or something like that )

[EdWorkman]

"art" acoording to somebody
"emporer's new clothes" ??

[EdWorkman]

Dunno whether the wrong way I spelled it fits better than the right way or not

[Henry Ambrose]

My books are packed for a move and I can't get to them right now but I think you are seeing contact prints, at least in some cases. Kertesz's early work was with an Ica 6x9/6x45 camera that took sheet film. Through his career he used other formats but I'd think that following on from his beginnings that small prints would have been one way for him to show us his work.

I know that I've made small prints from 35mm, 6x6, 6x7 that are quite pleasing. There's something about a hand size print that can be seen as jewel-like and is very charming. I have a couple of David Vestal's small prints he used to send out that are good examples.

I'm not sure who decided that prints had to be big to be good? I am pretty sure they're wrong.

[sanking]

I'm not sure who decided that prints had to be big to be good? I am pretty sure they're wrong.

I sure agree with you on this. In other times the way of evaluating photographs was to hold them in your hand and look at them. If you do this you can appreciate the quality of the image, even if it is very small, and especially a contact print that has a lot of detail. It was a much more intimate way of looking at an enjoying photographs.

Nowdays the size of print appears geared toward placement in large banks and exhibitions halls. My personal opinion is that any print larger than 20X24 is fairly obscene.

Good part is that all this large trash will be destroyed within a few decades because it will be too expensive to store.

Sandy King

[PViapiano]

The Getty Museum had a Kertesz show in the last 2 years or so, and many of the prints were as you describe, very small contact prints. I was surprised by them but they were beautiful nonetheless. There may be some info on the show still online in their archives...

[Roger Vadim]

I've seen the show André Kertész: The Early Years and the prints were tiny - BUT, nontheless beautifull and very subtle. Photography is a means of reproduction, yes. But seeing the originals (or a very good printed book with preferable prints in original size) is a true experience and you start to understand the intentions much better.

there is always the option of buing one of these cheap Taschen books. lots of blown-up photos...

[adrian tyler]

exhibition catalogues are by definition scientific documents, i leafed through this publication and the pictures you refer to are if i remember his early ones and they are reproduced 1/1, which is deemed correct for this type of publication.

a better mongraph on kertesz, i think, is "His Life and Work" by Pierre Borhan.

adrian

[Struan Gray]

Kertesz is sufficiently canonical that there is as much interest in the photographer as in his photographs. It makes sense to see the photographs as he would have experienced them himself. This is especially true of a photographer like Kertesz, whose photographs have a strong formal aesthetic element, because the interaction with the frame and the interplay between the parts and the whole can both change dramatically with print size.

The waters are muddied by the the fact that Kertesz seems to photographed with magazine publication as the intended end product, in which case he was presumably striving for compositions which would work well at full, half and quarter page size. All the same, in an exhibition devoted to him as a photographer it is useful to see what he saw.

Incidentally, the Kertesz Polaroids book is one of the favourites on my shelves. Dramatically beautiful and contemplative at the same time.

[Scott Davis]

When Kertesz was young, he had a small folder for a camera and did not have the money and/or space for an enlarger, so he made contact prints of his negatives. This was part of a retrospective exhibit on Kertesz at the National Gallery of Art a few years ago. It was not per-se a conscious choice on his part to limit his print sizes to very small prints, but an accommodation of reality.

[adrian tyler]

Incidentally, the Kertesz Polaroids book is one of the favourites on my shelves. Dramatically beautiful and contemplative at the same time.

DITTO- all made in his home, incredible!

[Bill_1856]

I'm not familiar with a Kertesz Polaroid book. What is the title? Thanks.

[Struan Gray]

Would you believe, "André Kertész: The Polaroids" :-)

http://www.amazon.com/André-Kertész-Polaroids/dp/0393065642

PS: there's a book tease on photoeye: http://photoeye.com/bookstore/mShowDetailsbyCatAmazon.cfm?Catalog=NT220&CFID=2107068&CFTOKEN=54448153

[Bill_1856]

Thanks, Struan. The book tease satisfies my interest.

[Brian Ellis]

Considering the prices classic photographs by the old masters bring these days, it wouldn't shock me to learn that they were just cut out of a contact sheet somewhere along the line.

Part of the reason for the vogue of big photographs is just that for the first time it's feasible to make them big. In the old darkroom days a 4' x 5' print was a virtual impossibility. Clyde Butcher used to make them that size in his darkroom but he had huge vats for the chemicals. Today there are any number of labs that are set up to make huge prints digitally and it doesn't even have to be all that expensive.

[mandoman7]

I have a good friend that runs a gallery that moves a lot of paintings in our area, and working with her I've learned some things relative to the size question. Most of her business comes from wealthy clients who need to fill wall space, to put it simply. If the other factors are in order; the resume, the exhibition history, the appeal of the piece in question, then the price of a larger size is almost preferrable for these characters (pre-recession, of course). Corporate offices, Big Ego houses, etc.... the average Joe doesn't spend a lot on art in america unfortunately.

[QT Luong]

When Kertesz was young, he had a small folder for a camera and did not have the money and/or space for an enlarger, so he made contact prints of his negatives. This was part of a retrospective exhibit on Kertesz at the National Gallery of Art a few years ago. It was not per-se a conscious choice on his part to limit his print sizes to very small prints, but an accommodation of reality.

After finishing the reading book in question, I learned that indeed he didn't have access to an enlarger during his youth (this is mentioned in the last chapter). However, he often revisited his work and consistently had earlier prints enlarged, so the enlarged version appears to be his preference. It sure is mine, as I prefer not to have to use a loupe to view prints. I still think a 4x5 inch is (barely) OK, but anything smaller does a disservice to the photograph.

As an aside it appears Kertesz had wadded a bit in LF photography (maybe for his commercial architectural work). There is a self portrait of him holding a view camera.

[QT Luong]

a better mongraph on kertesz, i think, is "His Life and Work" by Pierre Borhan.

adrian

Because of text or reproductions ?

[adrian tyler]

Because of text or reproductions ?

the reproductions in the princeton edition are beautiful, the paper is nicer too, and given the big gun photo-curator author no doubt it's got good text, however your question regarding small reproductions is because "unlike other works on Kertész, it (printeon) presents only vintage prints and includes several seldom seen photographs from throughout his career" whereas the borhan book just slaps 'em on the page nice'n'big, no academic worries, like a book rather than a catalogue. it also covers the 5 major "periods" of his work, so, after looking at the princeton edition - although tempted - i couldn't see anyhting that was not in the borhan.

i was tempted by the reproductions, but in the end kertesz, brassai even bresson - who subcontracted - were not master printers in the sense of say adams or weston, so it wasn't enough to swing it and certainly not nescessary to appreciate their work.

[QT Luong]

Besides my reservation about choice of prints, I was actually very pleased with the NGA/Princeton, in particular with the text. Regarding prints, starting from the 30s, Kertesz was unable to work in the darkroom due to a medical condition, and it wasn't until fairly late in his life that he was able to partner with a printer who was able to satisfy him.

[Henry Ambrose]

QT, you should buy the Borhan book. And yes, Kertesz did a lot of large format here in the U. S. for his magazine work. Architecture, particularly interiors, was a large portion of his commercial career.

[paulr]

I've always loved small prints. They engage people in a completely different way from big prints or medium ones. When confronted with a battleship-sized photograph by someone like Gursky, people generally back up across the room to take it in. They behold it. But if there's a 4x5 contact print, like one of Stieglitz's Equivalents, they walk right up to it and experience it personally, one-on-one. They practically press their noses against the glass.

Books in particular suit themselves to this kind of intimate viewing.

In addition, different sizes/scales emphasize different aspects of an image. There are some images that will work both big and small, but they rarely work the same way at different scales. Small images emphasize bold graphical strokes; large ones emphasize detail and space.

Henry asked who decided that prints have to be big to be good. I don't know who decided originally, but today it's perpetuated by gallery owners in Chelsea, who have 30 foot ceilings and walls the size of supertankers. It's a practical matter ... a contact print like the ones I admire would look like smudge in that setting. It's also an economic matter ... the people selling photographs are competing with the people selling paintings. And the paintings are huge!

[rdenney]

They practically press their noses against the glass.

They have to. Their bifocals aren't strong enough.

I think these guys making fine contact prints of medium-format plates must have done so while young. A gallery showing should provide magnifiers for people who can no longer focus at six inches.

I like what you said about some images working at various scales. I've always been happiest with my images when the bold strokes read well small and the detail and space makes it worth getting close even though it's a big print. But my definition of "big" is nowhere near the naval descriptions you used. I don't know about Chelsea, but here in Virginia, lots of the rich folk live in houses built by not-rich folk a couple of centuries ago, and the big prints can't find sufficient wall space. Our house is not ancient, but the architect who designed it understood efficiency, and I have to put most of my prints in portfolios or a map drawer. That means they have to "read" at arms length.

Even in the good galleries here, I rarely see paintings larger than 20x30, and at least one artist in our circle specializes in miniatures.

Despite the genius of Kertesz, one wonders why an astute observer such as our esteemed founder would have found it necessary to bring the topic up if the images worked optimally at the small size. Sometimes even the great artists need some editing.

Rick "thinking a crowd at that showing might have made it impossible for anyone to seem the images" Denney

[Bruce Barlow]

I sure agree with you on this. In other times the way of evaluating photographs was to hold them in your hand and look at them. If you do this you can appreciate the quality of the image, even if it is very small, and especially a contact print that has a lot of detail. It was a much more intimate way of looking at an enjoying photographs.

Nowdays the size of print appears geared toward placement in large banks and exhibitions halls. My personal opinion is that any print larger than 20X24 is fairly obscene.

Good part is that all this large trash will be destroyed within a few decades because it will be too expensive to store.

Sandy King


20x24? Spoken like someone who uses one!!:)

I've never made a print bigger than 8x10 (and sales reflect that!). I rarely enlarge 4x5s larger than about 6x8, and never enlarge 35mm larget than 5x7. I desperately love 5x7 contact prints. And all because I want the viewer to have that intimacy with my work. Viewing from across the hall just isn't my preference. That said, I've seen and enjoyed bigger prints (Ansel! Paul Strand!), I just don't like them for my work...

It's interesting, then, for me to find that I "see" pictures that will look good in my smaller sizes when I'm out photographing. I've learned to "visualize" (remembering Richard Ritter's thread that there's no such word as "previsualize") the final work in the print sizes I prefer.

Looking at proofs, few, if any, of my images would hold up to being blown up big. If I saw them big, I'd probably blow them up. Boom!

Fred Picker used to say that the print is the size the artists wants to make it, and there is only one size. "Don't sell prints by the square yard!" he said.

[Mark Sampson]

I've seen some of those same tiny Kertesz prints, about ten years ago, at a SoHo branch of one of the NY museums. They may have been all Kertesz could do at the time, and they were beautiful in their way, but I thought then (and now) that they were too small to be on gallery walls. I've seen early Walker Evans prints that were contact prints from roll-film negatives, and I felt the same way. I'd guess that they were both penniless artists, doing the best they could at the time. Those small prints are beautiful, and valuable, in their own right, but to assert that they are superior smacks of after-the-fact rationalization to me.

[Diane Maher]

I'm not sure who decided that prints had to be big to be good? I am pretty sure they're wrong.

They're the same people who think that big camera = professional photographer. :rolleyes:

Diane

[Henry Ambrose]

snipped........... Those small prints are beautiful, and valuable, in their own right, but to assert that they are superior smacks of after-the-fact rationalization to me.

Wow.

Here we are (some of us) discussing the prints of one of the founders, shapers, and maybe geniuses of modern photography as if somehow we know better than he did how to present his pictures.

Its like saying that the Wright brothers didn't really build that good an airplane or Henry Ford should have made the Model T in something other than black.

[Jeremy Moore]

Wow.

Here we are (some of us) discussing the prints of one of the founders, shapers, and maybe geniuses of modern photography as if somehow we know better than he did how to present his pictures.

Its like saying that the Wright brothers didn't really build that good an airplane or Henry Ford should have made the Model T in something other than black.

No, it's like saying that just because someone is a great photographer it doesn't mean they are the best editor or curator of their own work. Or how Ford may have had the ideas for the Model T, but he wasn't the best engineer to draft it.

Just because he's a "genius of modern photography" doesn't mean he's above reproach or beyond discussion.

[Henry Ambrose]

No, it's like saying that just because someone is a great photographer it doesn't mean they are the best editor or curator of their own work. Or how Ford may have had the ideas for the Model T, but he wasn't the best engineer to draft it.

Just because he's a "genius of modern photography" doesn't mean he's above reproach or beyond discussion.

I knew this would get some fingers flying.

Kertesz is certainly not above discussion but lets try for intelligent discussion of, in this case, why the prints are what they are. "I don't like small prints" does not qualify.

The prints are what they are. We can only assume he made them that way on purpose. No other person's personal preferences have anything to do with the creator's intention and execution.

[rdenney]

Wow.

Here we are (some of us) discussing the prints of one of the founders, shapers, and maybe geniuses of modern photography as if somehow we know better than he did how to present his pictures.

Its like saying that the Wright brothers didn't really build that good an airplane or Henry Ford should have made the Model T in something other than black.

(Would you fly in the Wright Flyer? Me, neither.)

Your response suggests to me that Kertesz decided, on artistic grounds, to make the prints small. That seems to me rather unrealistic. These were early prints when his capabilities were apparently limited. I suspect he did what he could with what he had. To say that he would not have made bigger prints (or started with bigger negatives) had he had that capability is to apply the same second-guessing being accused of those who would make them bigger for gallery display.

Let's apply a little reductio ad absurdum. How would you feel about going to a crowded gallery, and finding only 35mm contact prints on display? How about half-frame contact prints (surely at some point an artistic photographer picked up an Olympus Pen back in the day). Is it possible that good art was made using 110 film? How about viewing contact prints from that? Whatever the intentions of the artist, nobody at the gallery would be satisfied, because they wouldn't be able to see the art. And seeing the art is, after all, the whole point of visual art. So, if we can agree that there is a size too small for practical viewing in a gallery (or without optical aids), then it's only a matter of discussing the needs of viewers and how those needs intersect with the intentions of the artist. For example, an artist who will only show contact prints because of their unique quality is rather obligated, it seems to me, to use a large enough format so that the contact prints will be practically viewable. I'm not sure 4x5 is it, but 5x7 probably is. I've seen Polaroids in galleries, but always as an accent on the work of the photographer being shown. And I find those hard to see, and harder as I get older.

(Speaking of 5x7, complaining about contact prints from medium-format-sized negatives doesn't seem to me the same thing as promoting prints by the square yard. There seems to me a big middle ground in between those positions. And there is a big difference between a 2x3" print hanging on a wall and a 5x7" print hanging on a wall. The latter can be seen from a distance where most adults (even old ones) can focus their eyes. Maybe even two or three adults at one time. The former requires a magnifier. I have a very nice wide-field loupe sitting at my light table for viewing 6x7cm transparencies, and I find them hard to fully appreciate without it. Our arguments have suggested some false equivalencies, it seems to me.)

In a book, a 2" print is easier to manage--I can hold the book in my lap without worrying about sharing the viewing of it with five other people standing around me. I can hold it where I don't have to tilt my head back to see it through my bifocals. On a gallery wall, however, prints that small seem to me to be a little hostile to viewers, and that's not a relationship I would want to have with them, even if I was a genius.

I'm sure the young Kertesz did what he could with what he had, and the small contact prints he made have at least historical value as originals. That makes it possible to appreciate them on a number of levels. I'm not that familiar with all his work, so I'll ask: Were his later display prints that small?

Rick "just wondering" Denney

[Henry Ambrose]

I'd hazard a guess that the young Kertesz never imagined that his pictures would hang in a trendy NYC gallery alongside giant "posters" made on inkjet printers or huge C print murals.

Whadya think?

[rdenney]

I'd hazard a guess that the young Kertesz never imagined that his pictures would hang in a trendy NYC gallery alongside giant "posters" made on inkjet printers or huge C print murals.

Whadya think?

Very likely. Though I don't think the problem is that the small prints are being compared to wallpaper--that's another of those false equivalencies. QT seemed to be complaining that he couldn't see the print well enough to appreciate it, not because the murals elsewhere in the gallery (did he mention anything about that?) were so much "better." Take away the comparison with the mural-sized prints, however, and you seem to be agreeing with my point.

But given that the work is going to be displayed in a gallery, perhaps a wise editing decision to use larger prints might be justified. Refusing to do so on the assumption that the photographer was making an artistic decision when he was probably just accommodating how he anticipated they would be viewed seems to me second-guessing, or, as another poster put it, rationalizing after the fact.

Displaying them too small is like listening to a poetry reading in a large auditorium where the poet refuses to use a microphone and then mumbles. In his living room where he started out, it might have worked fine. If he refuses the microphone, he had better develop the voice to carrying the reading to the back row--can it be an artistic decision that people who came to hear the reading should go away having not heard it?

Rick "thinking this topic sheds light on the relationship between the artist and the viewer" Denney

[Henry Ambrose]

Based on that......

Next time I want to see some of Paul Strand's contact prints I'll let the show curator know to scan and inkjet them to 5 foot by 7 foot. Much better than dinky little 5x7 inch prints don't you think? And I won't have to stand so close.

[jnantz]

maybe the show is just a presentation of his small prints,
and how they were done *originally* ... not anything more than that ...

this thread kind of reminds me of the discussions regarding
the colorization of some of the great black and white movies from the 30s-40s ...
some have argued that colorizing the films did not take into consideration the
"artistic vision" of the people who made the films,
and others suggest that if the people who had produced the movies had the $$$
they would have made them all in color to begin with.
unfortunately, we will never know what the original film makers think/thought of all this ...
they are dead, just like kertesz

[rdenney]

Based on that......

Next time I want to see some of Paul Strand's contact prints I'll let the show curator know to scan and inkjet them to 5 foot by 7 foot. Much better than dinky little 5x7 inch prints don't you think? And I won't have to stand so close.

Sheesh, Henry, did you actually read my posts? How can this reaction fit with what I said?

Rick "confused utterly by this response" Denney

[Bill_1856]

I am currently reading the Kertesz catalog from NGA/Princeton, and I noticed many plates are reproduced tiny (think 2 inches across) on a large blank page, with many more 4x6 or less. Those include some of his well-known images that I had seen before reproduced at a more decent size. Looking at the exhibition checklist, it appears that those are the sizes of the exhibition prints. I assume there is some value in using what are probably vintage prints, but wouldn't Kertesz be better served by larger prints ? From the text, it appears that Kertesz often used enlargers (unlike some large format photographers). Why would curators insist on prints so small as to be barely legible ? Why would Kertesz make them that way in the first place ?

Tuan, while I believe the only reason Kertesz made such small prints was just because it was all he could do technically at the time, however the significance of exhibiting them in a museum or book is because it illustrates for us that despite it being all he had to work with, yet it was still sufficient for him to develop his personal vision and style.

[Henry Ambrose]

Rick:
You seem to operate from an assumption that there examples of Kertsz's prints of different sizes just waiting to be hung on display. I'm saying the work is what it is and the show was hung with what they had to hang.

As far as I know there is a limited number of his prints in private hands. I think I recall that the French government holds the bulk of his work by his gift. So absent some other source of his prints what is shown in the U. S. is what is available.

Its not like they can "go buy some big Kertesz prints" at Walmart.

Henry "its not personal" Ambrose

[rdenney]

You seem to operate from an assumption that there examples of Kertsz's prints of different sizes just waiting to be hung on display. I'm saying the work is what it is and the show was hung with what they had to hang.

That's a practical concern that constrains the situation, and as I said I'm no expert on his work. I wish you'd brought that up earlier instead of indirectly accusing me of suggesting mural-sized prints as an alternative. You kept coming back to the alternative of a medium-format-sized contact print being a mural, and that is a false choice. Apparently, even a modest 5x7 print is a false choice, but I didn't know that.

Perhaps, in that case, the gallery or museum needs to think of a different way to display them. Maybe instead of hanging them on the wall, they could display them behind glass at counter level, perhaps angled, which would allow viewers to get right up to them and see them even with bifocals or reading glasses. In any case, something about the display made it hard to see, as evidenced by the existence of this thread.

The fact that there are no larger alternatives available also moots the question of the photographer's intentions, it seems to me.

Rick "not trying to be argumentative, but seeing interesting issues" Denney