István Kerny (1879-1963)

Photographer. Kerny learnt the basics of photography from books and the photographer Béla Gévay. In the 1920s he travelled the countryside together with Rudolf Balogh and Ervin Kankowszky to photograph the characteristics of folk culture, thereby establishing the so called „Hungarian style” photography, which he even wrote an article about. His images and articles were published in several Hungarian and international magazines, e.g. Érdekes Újság [Interesting Newspaper], Új Idők [New Times] and Fotóművészet [Photo Art]. He started on drawing and painting in the early 1900s, and he also applied this fine art approach many times when making his photographs. He was also interested in reproducing photographs, and tried to learn as many different technical procedures as possible. He experimented with creating trick photos and photomontages, two of which were published in the 1925 book entitled Malerei, Fotografie, Film by László Moholy-Nagy. As a member of several associations he was an active organizer of the photography scene, published essays and held lectures.