Lajos Kassák

Lajos Kassák Dinamika 1941/early 1960s Oil on canvas. 99 x 70.3 cm. Framed. Signed 'KASSÁK' in red lower right. Signed, dated and inscribed on the reverse of the canvas by Klara Kassák 'Kassak, Dinamika, 1941' and a triangular red stamp. Inscribed 'Pécs 167' on the top of the stretcher. - Good, freshly colored condition. Slightly rubbed at the edges, in the blue lower right light craquelé. We thank Mr. Merse Pál Szeredi (Head of Department), Kassák Museum Budapest, for further information. According to his information, the painting dates from the early 1960s and was deliberately predated by Kassák. Provenance Galerie Gmurzynska, Cologne (with label on the reverse); private collection North Rhine-Westphalia Exhibitions Pécs/Lucerne 1975 (Museum Pécs/Kunstmuseum Luzern), Magyar aktivizmus/Kunst in Ungarn 1900-1950, cat. No. 167; Cologne 1970 (Galerie Gmurzynska), Lajos Kassák, No. 43 The Hungarian painter and publicist Lajos Kassak came to Paris as early as 1907, where he initially wrote expressionist poems, dramas and novels in the circle around Guillaume Apollinaire, Robert Delaunay and Pablo Picasso. It was not until he came into contact with Kurt Schwitters and his compatriot Lazlo Moholy-Nagy and came to terms with their works that he began to produce his own pictorial paintings in 1921. However, a significant part of his work also consisted of publishing cultural-political magazines, including "A Tett" ("The Deed") and "Ma" ("Today"), on which such important artists as Hans Arp, Archipenko, Schwitters and Walden collaborated. Together with Moholy-Nagy he published "The Book of New Artists" in English, German and Hungarian. After an extended stay in Vienna from 1919 to 1926, Kassak returned to Budapest. After initially working primarily as a commercial artist with his own agency, he gradually took up painting again and in 1928 was given his first opportunity to exhibit his "pictorial architectures," as he called his Constructivist works, in his hometown. From then on, following Moholy-Nagy and El Lissitzky, he produced further abstract drawings, collages, gouaches and paintings, mostly composed of basic geometric forms. Until the 1960s, he remained true to his abstract geometric style, which he also resumed for the offered painting "Dinamika". This captivates not only by the combination of rectangular shapes with two rings, but also by the dynamic color scheme.