Autobiography plays a significant part in the work of André Kertesz. Kertész was one of the pioneers of ‘Leica’ (ie. small, portable camera) photography and a mentor to photographers like Robert Capa, Brassaï and Cartier-Bresson. In fact, Cartier-Bresson himself acknowledged this debt when he said ‘Whatever we have done, Kertész did it first’. Kertész, a Hungarian, worked in Paris in the 1920s and 30s. His originality got him noticed. He was an intuitive artist and his search for an innovative visual language was expressed through subject matter and composition, through motifs of modernity and through playful humour and surrealism.