Trained as a painter in Budapest, Rogi André moved to Paris in 1925, where she befriended many emigre artists, including fellow Hungarian André Kertész, whom she married in 1928 (her professional name is fashioned from each of their first names). Although the latter taught her the fundamentals of photography (and then promptly divorced her), she quickly established her own reputation as a talented portraitist, with the keen ability to capture her sitters in informal, appealingly natural poses.