[translated from German]
Mattis-Teutsch in Hollywood
On the re-evaluation of a Transylvanian artist / In the renowned art gallery "Louis Stern Fine Arts", Los Angeles/West Hollywood (California/USA), in cooperation with the "Mission Art Galéria", Budapest and Miskolc and the "Tamás Kieselbach Galéria", Budapest, an exhibition can be seen from April 20 to July 20, which has attracted widespread international interest since its opening.
Under the title "Mattis-Teutsch and the Hungarian Avant-Garde, 1910-1935," approximately 79 works (sculptures, paintings, prints, and drawings) by fifteen representative artists are on display.
Following two major retrospectives, "Hans Mattis-Teutsch and the 'Blue Rider'" (2001) in Budapest and Munich, the work of the versatile Transylvanian painter, graphic artist, poet, sculptor, art theorist, and educator is now being presented for the first time in the United States—he is represented by 46 works—with this exhibition illustrating and commenting on his formative relationships with the Hungarian avant-garde, using the example of fourteen artists with a total of 33 works.
To "illustrate an era," watercolors, prints, and drawings by diverse yet highly renowned artists - László Moholy-Nagy, Lajos Kassák, Béla Uitz, Sándor Bortnyik, Csaba V. Perlrott, János Schadl, Hugó Scheiber, Béla Kádár, Lajos Tihanyi, and others - are on display. "Today, these artists are among the greatest names in modern art," according to the organizer and gallery owner Louis Stern, "and whose work, from 1910 to 1935, once provided important creative impulses." The excellently printed catalog in English (128 pages, 95 illustrations) explores the diversity of influences and interrelationships in detailed essays by the two art historians Éva Forgács (Los Angeles), currently a professor at the Art Center College of Design in Pasadena, California, and Dr. Éva Bajkay, curator of the Hungarian National Gallery (Budapest), documents and explains the work. At the beginning of the era, as Éva Forgács demonstrates, was a generation of young artists largely influenced by Paul Cézanne's artistic style, whose forms of expression contain essential structural elements of Cubism and abstract painting. Names such as Béla Czóbel, Károly Kernstock, Róbert Berény, and others are among the forerunners of the avant-garde that subsequently grouped around the artists' movement and the eponymous magazine "MA," and was later promoted by Herwart Walden's "Sturm" circle. For example, the 99th exhibition, held in July-August 1921, at the Berlin "Sturm" Gallery, Potsdamer Straße 134a, was dedicated to Paul Klee and Hans Mattis-Teutsch. The poster for this memorable joint exhibition is also reproduced in the catalog.
And so the question arises once again—and it also applies to several other important Transylvanian artists: How would Mattis-Teutsch's career have unfolded if, after his last exhibition abroad in 1929, he had remained in Western Europe together with Gyula Hincz and László Mészáros at the Tamás Gallery in Budapest, and not returned to Kronstadt? Good question. In Kronstadt, the Nazis later ostracized him and insulted him as a "cultural Bolshevik," as can be read in the press of the time; the same would have happened to him in Germany. Yet here, his name would have continued to stand among those artists with whom he was associated through the "Blue Rider"—even if they were temporarily silenced as "degenerate."
Hans Mattis-Teutsch died lonely and forgotten in Kronstadt on March 17, 1960. Due to a public confrontation with a party official in 1957, he was no longer allowed to exhibit, and his works had been removed from all public museums and collections. His departure from this world was ignored by the communist-controlled press at the time. Here in Munich, where such a prominent public critic of "Socialist Realism" should have at least been acknowledged, the same thing happened, for whatever reason. "The verdict of the authorities and critics seems to be final, across borders and times," remarked his widow Marie Mattis-Teutsch in 1965, alluding to one of the artist's long-standing adversaries. But, as we can see, this "verdict" was eventually overturned, albeit belatedly.
Claus Stephani
(printed edition: Transylvanian Newspaper, Issue 9 of June 15, 2002, page 13)
Janos Mattis Teutsch (1884-1960), who was included in the LACMA show, is now the centerpiece of an ambitious, engaging exhibition at Louis Stern Fine Arts, which comes with an impressive catalo
An eclectic blend of colors, styles and moods makes this small exhibit worthwhile to visit.