Béla Uitz (1887-1972) - Árkadiá

The auction features a very rare original print by the significant Hungarian artist Béla Uitz from 1916.

The image shows a figurative composition with the motif "Bather" The title "Árkadia" alludes to the notion since the Early Modern Period that life beyond social constraints is possible, derived from the Greek myth of Arcadia.

Label
Below the depiction, signed in graphite and dated "Bela Uitz 1916".

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

Condition
Strong impression on handmade paper with natural rag 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 line. The depiction itself is in good condition.

Provenance
The sheet comes from a private collection in Berlin, purchased at 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 first trained as a locksmith. From 1908 to 1912 he studied at the Hochschule der Bildenden Künste 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 shipped to the Panama-Pacific International Exposition, for which he received a Gold Medal in 1915.[2]

In 1915, together with his brother-in-law Lajos Kassák and Emil Szittya, he published the Hungarian avant-garde journal A Tett (The Deed), which was banned by military censorship in 1917. Afterwards he was co-editor of Kassák's journal 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.[2]

After the war ended in 1918, he was one of 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 (Forward, Red Soldiers!). 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 in Vienna with the Hungarian activist group, where he joined Kassák's circle and encountered new trends in the international avant-garde. In spring 1921 he traveled to Moscow, where he was fascinated by both contemporary Russian constructivist art and the Orthodox churches, especially the icon painting.

Upon returning to Vienna, he broke with Lajos Kassák and, together with Aladár Komjáti, founded the magazine Egység (Unity). Translation of Naum Gabo's Realist Manifesto, the program of the constructivist group of Rodchenko and Stepanova, and the ideas of Kasimir Malevich's Suprematism.

In 1923 he adopted the Malstil (mural style) of Proletkult and, from 1924, worked in Paris for 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. Just before his death, he returned to Hungary.