The Eight - Hungary’s Highway to Modernism

News, even if they are 100 years old: In the Bank Austria Kunstforum the pioneers on Hungarian modernism are on display from September 9 till December 2 2012 in a unique group exhibition.

Their names are mostly unknown in Austria and yet they are an integral part of the history of modernism in Europe: Róbert Berény, Dezsö Czigány, Béla Czóbel, Károly Kernstok, Ödön Márffy, Dezsö Orbán, Bertalan Pór, Lajos Tihanyi. They were all born in the relatively short period between 1873 and 1887, Dezsö Orbán, born in 1873, even lived until 1986. In the Hungarian capital modernism was discovered by the eight Hungarian artists independently of Vienna where painting was dominated by Gustav Klimt at that time. They met in Paris, and studied the great innovators of the time and were inspired by them – these influences are clearly visible in the exhibition in the Kunstforum, structured according to topics. Nevertheless are the artist’s works, especially those by Robert Berény by no means to be considered mere imitations of the Parisian role models.

The direct contact with the Fauves around Henri Matisse, the influence of Cezanne and of French cubism by Braque and Picasso, all this revolutionized their own approach to painting. By connecting with European modernism, they led Hungarian art into a new era around 1909/1910.

„A Nyolcak“ (The Eight) exhibited together fort he first time in 1909 in Budapest and caused an outrage. They shocked the audience which was used to academic impressionism and symbolism with the unconventional topics and compositions, their cubist figures and bold colours. After this first scandalous exhibition they were in touch with leading intellectuals of the time, like the composers Béla Bartók and Zoltán Kodály, the philosopher György Lukács or the writer Endre Ady, and founded a new art magazine, "Nyugat" (West). Despite of differences in style between the individual artists the group tried to maintain its unconventional and expressionistic way of painting and organized a total of three collective exhibitions, even though in the year 1912 the group consisted only of four members, before finally dissolving in the course of its third exhibition in the Künstlerhaus Vienna, in 1914.

Béla Czóbel, Dezsö Czigány, Robert Berény, Lajos Tihanyi and Bertalan Pór were very much inspired by the Fauves, especially in their still lifes and landscapes, but as well as by Paul Cézanne and the cubists, even though they had their own original approach to the human figure. Art reviews in the Hungary of 1909 were scathing, criticising a “school of tastelessness”, admonishing primitivism and pathology of the figures. In Vienna “The Eight” were invited by the Künstlerhaus but the contributions of Róbert Berény and Lajos Tihanyi were refused by the jury. The more conservative members of the group, Márffy, Orbán, Kernstok and Czigány exhibited their work, which caused Bertalan Pór to leave the group in protest and solidarity with the refused artists.

In Hungary it was only in 2010 that the artists were properly recognized with a big collective exhibition. The Bank Austria Kunstforum reinitiates the dialogue with our neighbouring country in cooperation with the Szépművészeti Múzeum, Budapest, and the Magyar Nemzeti Galéria, Budapest, aiming to put Hungarian modernism on the cultural map and to restore the international profile to a current of painting that deserves the publicity merited by its quality.

The lavishly illustrated catalogue published for the exhibition offers a thorough insight into the history of the group, the works and biographies of the painters as well as the controversies surrounding them and the cultural life of an entire era of art history. The Bank Austria Kunstforum opens daily from 10 a.m. to 7 p.m., on Fridays until 9 p.m. (written by Cem Angeli)