Béla Uitz (1887-1972) - Árkadiá

In the auction there is a very rare original print by the significant Hungarian artist Béla Uitz from 1916.

The picture shows a figurative composition with the motif "Bather." The title "Árkadia" (Arcadia) refers to the notion from Ancient Greek myth of Arcadia, revived since the Early Modern period, that life beyond the constraints of society is possible.

Labeling
Below the depiction, signed and dated in pencil "Bela Uitz 1916".

Dimensions
The sheet measures approx. 41.0 x 53.0 cm, the image approx. 23.5 x 34.5 cm.

Condition
Vivid print on handmade paper with natural deckle edges. The paper is age-browned and soiled. Edges and corners partly bumped and creased. At the bottom edge there is a crease with a tear coming from the edge. The depiction itself is in good condition.

Provenance
The sheet comes from a Berlin private collection, purchased at the Galerie Irrgang Berlin.

Béla Uitz (born March 8, 1887 in Mehala, Austria-Hungary; died January 26, 1972 in Budapest) was a Hungarian painter.

Béla Uitz initially completed an apprenticeship as a locksmith. From 1908 to 1912 he studied at the University of Fine Arts in Budapest[1] and had his first exhibition participation in Budapest in 1914. Along with works by the Die Acht (Nyolcak) group, his works were sent to the Panama-Pacific International Exposition, for which he received a gold medal in 1915.[2]

In 1915 he published, together with his brother-in-law Lajos Kassák and Emil Szittya, the Hungarian avant-garde magazine A Tett (The Deed), which was banned by wartime censorship in 1917. Afterwards he was co-editor of Kassák’s magazine MA (Today) and participated in its third group exhibition in 1918. In 1917 he organized an exhibition titled A Fiatalok (The Young) with Péter Dobrovics, Lajos Gulácsy, János Kmetty and József Nemes Lampérth.

After the war, in 1918, he was among the leading visual artists of the Hungarian Soviet Republic, a member of its Art Directorate and head of the Workshops for Proletarian Visual Arts, where propaganda posters were produced (Vörös Katonák Előre!). After the suppression of the Soviet Republic he was imprisoned for a time. After the fall of the Hungarian Soviet Republic in 1919, Uitz went into exile with the Hungarian activist group to Vienna, where he joined Kassák’s circle and encountered new trends in international avant-garde art. In spring 1921 he traveled to Moscow, where he was fascinated by both contemporary Russian Constructivist art and the Orthodox churches, especially icon painting.

Upon his return to Vienna he broke with Lajos Kassák and, together with Aladár Komját, founded the magazine Egység (Unity). Translation of Naum Gabo’s Realist Manifesto, the program of the Constructivist group of Rodchenko and Stepanova, and the thoughts of Kasimir Malevich’s Suprematism.

In 1923 he took over Proletkult’s painting style and, beginning in 1924, engaged in Paris with the French Communist Party. In 1926 he relocated to the Soviet Union and worked there for more than forty years as an artist of Soviet propaganda art. Shortly before his death he returned to Hungary.