Bela CZOBEL (Budapest 1883-1976)

Artist's studio in Budapest Circa 1969 Oil on canvas 74 x 92 cm Signed lower right with little matter "CZÓBEL Oriented by his grandfather, Béla Czóbel began an artistic career in 1902 in the painters' colony of Nagybánya (Baia Mare) in Transylvania. During the years 1902-1903 he studied at the Munich Academy and went to Paris in 1903. In Paris, he first lived in the Hotel du Danemark in Montparnasse and studied at the Julian Academy. Every summer the artist returned to Hungary and became a witness to the French avant-garde painting. Bela Czobel took part in the Fauve movement and exhibited alongside Derain, Vlaminck, Braque and Matisse at the Salon d'Automne in 1905. He also exhibited at the Salon des Indépendants from 1906 to 1908 and at the Salon des Tuileries in 1926. In 1909 in Paris, he joined the formation of the avant-garde group called the "Eight". The artist was in Hungary at the beginning of the First World War and could not return to his Parisian studio. He spent the war years until 1919 in Holland. Between 1919 and 1925, the painter settled in Berlin, exhibited at the "Der Sturm" gallery and returned to Paris in 1925. In 1940, he moved back to Hungary, to Szentendre, where the museum dedicated to the artist is now located. This work was created by the artist between 1966 and 1975, when he worked in his studio on Kelenhegyi Street in Budapest. The painter represents the interior of his studio. A table topped by a vase sits in the center of the composition, paintings are placed on the floor on the left, a drawing board is visible on the right, a bow window composed of four windows radiates the studio with luminosity and offers multiple points of escape to the composition. The dominant palette of yellow, blue and red and the compositional structure of the multiple colors are typical of Bela Czobel's work from this period. Elise Vignault