Árpád Szenes

Árpád Szenes (also Árpád Szenès; 6 May 1897, Budapest – 16 January 1985, Paris) was a Hungarian-Jewish abstract painter who worked in France. In 1897, Szenes was born into a petty bourgeois family in Budapest. Many artists including Arthur Bárdos, Ignotus, Lajos Hatvany were guests in the family's home. He went to the Munkácsy Mihály Street Secondary Grammar School and was taught among others by Milán Füst. He was passionate about drawing. He served in World War I, but he did not come to the front; he painted portraits on the graves of heroic fallen soldiers from photos. Here he was recognized by the sculptor Dezső Bokros Birman, who directed him towards modern art. He enrolled in the free school of József Rippl-Rónai, where Béla Iványi-Grünwald and Károly Kernstok had great influence on him. In 1919 he worked with his fellow painters at the Artist Colony of Kecskemét. Since they did not receive money, they had to do agricultural work. He painted together among others with Gyula Derkovits, Béla Iványi-Grünwald, János Kmetty, Róbert Emil Novotny and Pál Pátzay. He was ill with hard physical work, and moved with two friends to a business premise in Városmajor Street in Budapest. At that time, he met István Beöthy, with whom they studied Buddhism and Oriental art. His style was not mature yet: in 1922 he exhibited abstract artwork at a group exhibition of young artists at Ernst Museum, but his other paintings of the same year reflect the traditions of the Hungarian painting of the turn of the century and the influence of his masters. He went on a European study trip; the first station was in Germany in 1924, where he met with the works of Kandinsky and Klee, and then studied the paintings of Giotto and Piero della Francesca in Italy. He first visited Paris in 1924, then only for three months, then again in the autumn of 1925 for staying. The money that he received from his uncle was gone, and for months he was in extreme poverty, and as advised by László Ney lived on cartoons made from guests at Montmartre cafés.