The Eight at Museum of Fine Arts in Budapest
The Museum of Fine Arts in Budapest will display until the 12th of September an exhibition called The Eight, which includes works by the Group of Eight, whose works represent the best of the Hungarian art inspired by the French modernist currents from the last century. People will have the opportunity to appreciate newly discovered and restored works by some of the artists of this important group.
The story of the meeting of these eight artists dates back to 1909, when they met in the first avant-garde art exhibition in Budapest, in which the audience discovered this talented group of young artists who introduced Cubism and Expressionism, while breaking the classicism of the Hungarian painting.
The Group of Eight was formed by Róbert Berény, Béla Czóbel, Ödön Márffy, Dezső Orbán, Bertalan Pór, Dezső Czigány, Lajos Tihanyi and Károly Kernstok. They were inspired by Henri Matisse and Paul Cezane, considered the fathers of Fauvism, because of their chromatic exaltation based on the color theory that established the primary, secondary and complementary colors.
The impact caused by the Group of Eight in the Hungarian culture was crucial for the development of the modern arts and intellectual vanguard. In their three exhibitions, they gathered artists from various disciplines and intellectual trends among which were the composers Béla Bartók and Zoltán Kodály, the poet Endre Ady and the philosopher György Lukács.
Róbert Berény was well known for his portrait of the Hungarian composer Bela Bartok, which was painted in 1913. As well as all members of the Group of Eight, Berény performed several activities in music and literature that were never known. After the fall of the republic in 1919, he immigrated to Berlin, along with many other artists and writers from Hungary. In 1926 he returned to Hungary and won the Szinnyei award in 1936. During World War II, his workshop was destroyed and many of his works were lost forever.
Czóbel Béla was a member of the Group of Eight who was considered as a regarded member of the exclusive Ecole de Paris, a group of the greatest painters of the twentieth century.
Dezső Czigány of gypsy origin studied painting in Paris and dedicated himself to painting portraits and dead nature. His suicide after killing his family condemned his work to ostracism, and that is why it is hard to find his works and references.
Lajos Tihanyi was a painter, illustrator and autodidact lithographer, because he never was able to study due to his condition as deaf-muted person. He was Cubism, although he changed his current through the years.
All painters of the Group of Eight performed wonderful works and were enormously prolific. Many of their works were destroyed during the Second World War.
For more information http://www.szepmuveszeti.hu/web/guest/articleview?mi_layout_id=29.30&mi_article_id=877
Nancy Guzman
An interesting entertainment proposal for this summer. Rent apartments in Budapest and come to discover the paintings of the Group of Eight and its influence in the Hungarian art.
Translated by: Hans
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