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Hugó Scheiber (born 29 September 1873 in
Budapest Budapest is the Capital city, capital and List of cities and towns of Hungary, most populous city of Hungary. It is the List of cities in the European Union by population within city limits, tenth-largest city in the European Union by popul ...
– died there 7 March 1950) was a Hungarian modernist painter.Hugo Scheiber artist and art...the-artists.org


Life

Hugó Scheiber was brought from
Budapest Budapest is the Capital city, capital and List of cities and towns of Hungary, most populous city of Hungary. It is the List of cities in the European Union by population within city limits, tenth-largest city in the European Union by popul ...
to
Vienna Vienna ( ; ; ) is the capital city, capital, List of largest cities in Austria, most populous city, and one of Federal states of Austria, nine federal states of Austria. It is Austria's primate city, with just over two million inhabitants. ...
at the age of eight where his father worked as a sign painter for the Prater Theater. At fifteen, he returned with his family to Budapest and began working during the day to help support them and attending painting classes at the School of Design in the evening, where Henrik Papp was one of his teachers. He completed his studies in 1900. His work was at first in a post-Impressionistic style but from 1910 onward showed his increasing interest in German
Expressionism Expressionism is a modernist movement, initially in poetry and painting, originating in Northern Europe around the beginning of the 20th century. Its typical trait is to present the world solely from a subjective perspective, distorting it rad ...
and
Futurism Futurism ( ) was an Art movement, artistic and social movement that originated in Italy, and to a lesser extent in other countries, in the early 20th century. It emphasized dynamism, speed, technology, youth, violence, and objects such as the ...
. This made it of little interest to the conservative Hungarian art establishment. However, in 1915 he met the great Italian avant-gardist
Filippo Tommaso Marinetti Filippo Tommaso Emilio Marinetti (; 22 December 1876 – 2 December 1944) was an Italian poet, editor, art theorist and founder of the Futurist movement. He was associated with the utopian and Symbolist artistic and literary community Abbaye de ...
and the two painters became close friends. Marinetti invited him to join the Futurist Movement. The uniquely modernist style that he developed was, however, closer to German Expressionism than to Futurism and eventually drifted toward an international
art deco Art Deco, short for the French (), is a style of visual arts, architecture, and product design that first Art Deco in Paris, appeared in Paris in the 1910s just before World War I and flourished in the United States and Europe during the 1920 ...
manner similar to
Erté Romain de Tirtoff (23 November 1892 – 21 April 1990), known by the pseudonym Erté (from the French pronunciation of his initials: ), was a Russian-born French people, French artist and designer. He worked in several fields, including fashi ...
's. In 1919, he and his friend
Béla Kádár Béla Kádár (1877–1956) was a Hungarian painter influenced by Der Blaue Reiter, Cubism, Futurism, Neo-Primitivism, Constructivism, and Metaphysical painting. Biography Kádár was born into a working-class Jewish family. After only six yea ...
held an exhibition at the Hevesy Salon in Vienna. It was a great success and at last caused the Budapest Art Museum to acquire some of Scheiber's drawings. Encouraged, Scheiber came back to live in Vienna in 1920. A turning point in Scheiber's career came a year later, when
Herwarth Walden Herwarth Walden (actual name Georg Lewin; 16 September 1879 – 31 October 1941) was a German expressionist artist and art expert in many disciplines. He is broadly acknowledged as one of the most important discoverers and promoters of German av ...
, founder of Germany's leading avant-garde periodical, ''Der Sturm'', and of the Sturm Gallery in Berlin, became interested in Scheiber's work. Scheiber moved to Berlin in 1922, and his paintings soon appeared regularly in Walden's magazine and elsewhere. Exhibitions of his work followed in London, Rome, La Paz, and New York. Scheiber's move to Germany coincided with a significant exodus of Hungarian artists to Berlin, including
László Moholy-Nagy László Moholy-Nagy (; ; born László Weisz; July 20, 1895 – November 24, 1946) was a Kingdom of Hungary, Hungarian painter and photographer as well as a professor in the Bauhaus school. He was highly influenced by Constructivism (art), con ...
and
Sándor Bortnyik Sándor Bortnyik (July 3, 1893 – December 31, 1976) was a Hungarian painter and graphic designer. His work was greatly influenced by Cubism, Expressionism and Constructivism (art), Constructivism. Life Born in Târgu Mureș, Transylvania ...
. There had been a major split in ideology among the Hungarian avant-garde. The Constructivist and leader of the Hungarian avantgarde,
Lajos Kassák Lajos Kassák (March 21, 1887 – July 22, 1967) was a Hungarian poet, novelist, painter, essayist, editor, theoretician of the avant-garde, and translator. Self-taught, he became a writer within the socialist movement and published journa ...
(painted by Hugó Scheiber in 1930) believed that art should relate to all the needs of contemporary humankind. Thus he refused to compromise the purity of his style to reflect the demands of either the ruling class or socialists and communists. The other camp believed that an artist should be a figurehead for social and political change. The fall out and factions that resulted from this politicisation resulted in most of the Hungarian avantgardists leaving Vienna for Berlin. Hungarian émigrés made up one of the largest minority groups in the German capital and the influx of their painters had a significant effect on Hungarian and international art. Apart from the political activists, there were independent Modernists such as Scheiber and Kádár, who hoped to find fertile ground for their aesthetic and social idealism. Hugó Scheiber, among others, suddenly found himself in the upper echelons of the dynamic Berlin art world. Another turning point of Scheiber's career came in 1926, with the New York exhibition of the
Société Anonyme The abbreviation S.A. or SA designates a type of limited company in certain countries, most of which have a Romance languages, Romance language as their official language and operate a derivative of the 1804, Napoleonic, civil law (legal syste ...
, organized by
Katherine Dreier Katherine Sophie Dreier (September 10, 1877 – March 29, 1952) was an American artist, lecturer, patron of the arts, and social reformer. Dreier developed an interest in art at a young age and was afforded the opportunity of studying art in the ...
. Scheiber and other important avantgarde artists from more than twenty-three countries were represented. In 1933, Scheiber was invited by Marinetti to participate in the great meeting of the Futurists held in Rome in late April 1933, ''Mostra Nazionale d’Arte Futurista'' where he was received with great enthusiasm. Gradually, the Hungarian artists began to return home, particularly with the rise of Nazism in Germany. Kádár went back from Berlin in about 1932 and Scheiber followed in 1934. He was then at the peak of his powers and had a special flair in depicting café and cabaret life in vivid colors, sturdily abstracted forms and spontaneous brush strokes. Scheiber depicted cosmopolitan modern life using stylized shapes and expressive colors. His preferred subjects were cabaret and street scenes, jazz musicians, flappers, and a series of self-portraits (usually with a cigar). A highly prolific workman, he produced well over 1500 works (nearly 1300 are still listed o
www.artnet.com
, his principal media being
gouache Gouache (; ), body color, or opaque watercolor is a water-medium paint consisting of natural pigment, water, a binding agent (usually gum arabic or dextrin), and sometimes additional inert material. Gouache is designed to be opaque. Gouach ...
and oil. He was a member of the prestigious New Society of Artists (KUT—Képzőművészek Új Társasága) and seems to have weathered Hungary's post–World War II transition to state-communism without difficulty. He continued to be well regarded, eventually even receiving the posthumous honor of having one of his images used for a Soviet postage stamp (see image above). Hugó Scheiber died in Budapest in 1950.


Museums and Exhibits

Paintings by Hugó Scheiber form part of permanent museum collections in Budapest (
Hungarian National Museum The Hungarian National Museum (, ) was founded in 1802 and is the national museum for the history, art, and archaeology of Hungary, including areas not within Hungary's modern borders, such as Transylvania; it is separate to the collection of int ...
), Pecs ( Jannus Pannonius Museum), Vienna, New York, Bern and elsewhere. His work has also been shown in many important exhibitions, including: * "The Nell Walden Collection,"
Kunsthaus Zürich The Kunsthaus Zürich is an art museum in Zurich. It is the biggest art museum in Switzerland by area and houses one of the most important art collections in Switzerland, assembled over time by the Zürcher Kunstgesellschaft, a nonprofit art soc ...
(1945) * "Collection of the Société Anonyme,"
Yale University Art Gallery The Yale University Art Gallery (YUAG) is an art museum in New Haven, Connecticut. It houses a major encyclopedic collection of art in several interconnected buildings on the campus of Yale University. Although it embraces all cultures and period ...
,
New Haven, Connecticut New Haven is a city of the U.S. state of Connecticut. It is located on New Haven Harbor on the northern shore of Long Island Sound. With a population of 135,081 as determined by the 2020 United States census, 2020 U.S. census, New Haven is List ...
(1950) * "Hugó Scheiber: A Commemorative Exhibition,"
Hungarian National Museum The Hungarian National Museum (, ) was founded in 1802 and is the national museum for the history, art, and archaeology of Hungary, including areas not within Hungary's modern borders, such as Transylvania; it is separate to the collection of int ...
, Budapest (1964) * "Ungarische Avantgarde,
Galleria del Levante, Munich
(1971) * "Paris-Berlin 1900-1930,"
Centre Georges Pompidou The Centre Pompidou (), more fully the (), also known as the Pompidou Centre in English and colloquially as Beaubourg, is a building complex in Paris, France. It was designed in the style of high-tech architecture by the architectural team of ...
, Paris (1978) * "L’Art en Hongrie, 1905-1920,
Musée d’Art et l’Industrie, Saint-Etienne
(1980) * "Ungarische Avangarde in der Weimarer Republik," Marburg (1986) * "Modernizmus," Eresz & Maklary Gallery, Budapest (2006) * "Hugó Scheiber & Béla Kádár,
Galerie le Minotaure, Paris and Tel Aviv
(2007) Hugó Scheiber's paintings continue to be regularly sold at
Sotheby's Sotheby's ( ) is a British-founded multinational corporation with headquarters in New York City. It is one of the world's largest brokers of fine art, fine and decorative art, jewellery, and collectibles. It has 80 locations in 40 countries, an ...
,
Christie's Christie's is a British auction house founded in 1766 by James Christie (auctioneer), James Christie. Its main premises are on King Street, St James's in London, and it has additional salerooms in New York, Paris, Hong Kong, Milan, Geneva, Shan ...
, Gillen's Arts (London), Papillon Gallery (Los Angeles) and other auction houses.


Bibliography

*''A Storm in Europe: Béla Kádar, Hugó Scheiber and Der Sturm in Berlin'' (
Ben Uri Gallery The Ben Uri Gallery & Museum is a registered museum and charity based at 108a Boundary Road, off Abbey Road in St John's Wood, London, England. It features the work and lives of émigré artists in London, and describes itself as "The Art Museum ...
, The London Museum of Art, 2003),
Georges Darany & Ernest Schmidt, ''Hugó Scheiber: Leben und Werk'' (Edition Inter Art Galerie, 1982)
*''Le Guidargus de la peinture'' (G. Schurr: Editions de l’amateur, Paris, 2000) * ''Bénézit Dictionnaire critique et documentaire des peintres, sculpteurs, dessinateurs et graveurs'', vol. 9 (E. Bénézit, Librairie Gründ, Paris, 1976). *Haulish Lenke, ''Hugó Scheiber'' (Serpento, Budapest, 1995), . *Bela Kadar&Hugo Scheiber, ''A Storm in Europe'' (Ben Uri Gallery and Museum, 2003), .


External links


References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Scheiber, Hugo Artists from Budapest 1873 births 1950 deaths 20th-century Hungarian painters Hungarian male painters 20th-century Hungarian male artists Painters from Austria-Hungary