418 - Tibor CSERNUS (1927–2007)

Tibor CSERNUS (1927–2007) The Boxers, 1976 Oil on canvas Signed and dated 1976 on the back Claude Bernard Gallery label on the back of the stretcher 146 x 196 cm Resale royalty payable by the buyer. The condition report is available upon request at the following email address: contact@neo-encheres.com Description: Born in 1927 in Kondoros, in the Great Hungarian Plain, Tibor Csernus studied at the Budapest Academy of Fine Arts under Aurél Bernáth. A stay in Paris in 1957–1958, where he discovered the scraping technique—notably through Simon Hantaï—marked the beginning of his so-called “surnaturalist” period; young painters then gathered around him, including László Lakner, Ákos Szabó, and László Gyémánt. In 1964, he moved to Paris with his wife, the sculptor Katalin Sylvester, joining other Hungarian artists based in France such as Victor Vasarely, Judit Reigl, and Simon Hantaï. As an illustrator for Gallimard, he turned in the 1970s toward a narrative-inspired figurative style, then toward a powerful realism drawing on the old masters—foremost among them Caravaggio—whom he transposed into a contemporary vocabulary: beach scenes, still lifes featuring model airplanes, and biblical scenes with figures dressed in jeans. Beginning in 1978, he worked at the Bateau-Lavoir, where he remained until his death in 2007; his studio has since been reconstructed in Budapest by the KOGART Foundation. The Claude Bernard Gallery, whose label appears on the back of this canvas, has dedicated numerous exhibitions to him in Paris and New York. It has championed a lineage of demanding figurative artists, from Alberto Giacometti, Balthus, and Francis Bacon to Sam Szafran, Giorgio Morandi, and David Hockney.