GEZA VANDOR. Maquette for Ricipoudres Advertisement, c. 1930s. 14x10" gelatin silver print on 19x12" collaged on tan board. Printed c. 1930s. Artist's name typewritten on paper and adhered to mount recto.

Geza Vandor was born on May 12, 1898, in Budapest, Hungary. He registered at technical school (Magyar Iparmuveszeti Foiskola) in 1914. By 1920 Vandor had begun working in the film industry, initially as a set decorator with Star Filmgyar of Budapest. In 1921 he became a member of the artists' trade union of Budapest, within the Film Artists section. He also received a promotion to chief decorator, but he was anxious to move on to bigger things and so left for Paris later that year.

He found work first at Garbagny Films (1921-22) and then Gallia Film Co. and Ets. Cinematographic Levinski (1922). He then went to work at Pathe Cinema, first as a photographer of artwork for animation and then later as an animator artist himself. In 1926 Vandor began to frequent Montparnasse, and it is here that he built close friendships with fellow Hungarian photographers Ergy Landau, Andre Kertesz and Sigismond Kolos-Vary.

Beginning in 1928 he worked at Gorsky Freres as a still photographer. Not long after, his byline showed up on photographs in a number of magazines, including La Revue Ces Temps-ci and Nord Magazine. Perhaps his most important collaboration was with les Chemins de Fer du Nord (the North Railroads). These highly stylized images were published several times in the 1930s in Nord Magazine. They share the same sensibilities as Russian constructionist photographs of the same period. Sharp angles, motion, heavy shadow, smoke and distorted viewpoints were all earmarks of this approach, which in Paris was virtually unique to Vandor's imagery. But Vandor's work also combined the best of the Parisian influences of the time. The mystery of the images and bizarre slices of life that he photographed took much from the Surrealist movement, which found its center in Paris.

In 1930, probably at the urging of his fellow Hungarians, Vandor became a member of Groupe Annuel des Photographes, where he showed his work alongside that of Man Ray, Roger Parry, Florence Henri, Ergy Landau, Boiffard, Brassai, Cartier-Bresson, Germaine Krull, Eli Lotar, Albin-Guillot, Ilse Bing, Andre Kertesz, Wols and other top photographers working in Paris.

Fair / Good. Emulsion cracking throughout and fragment of print in lower right edge missing.