Alfred Reth (1884-1966) - Landscape

Alfréd réth, born alfréd roth on february 29, 1884 in budapest and died in september 1966 in paris was a hungarian painter, naturalized french, considered one of the main figures of the avant-garde and the school of paris. In 1903, he became acquainted with the nagybánya colony of painters and began working under the direction of károly ferenczy. In 1905, he went to paris with józsef egry. In france, he worked in the studio of j. E. Blanche in montmartre. He met the orientalist jean buchot through mednyánszky and developed his interest in hindu and khmer art, which he discovered at the guimet museum. He discovered cézanne at ambroise vollard's house and then at the salon d'automne in 1907; he did not join the fauve group but was part of the cubist movement in 1911. He exhibited 3 paintings at the salon des indépendants, hung between those of matisse and rouault, and repeated in 1911: his paintings rubbed shoulders with those of braque, to whom he would later be close, léger, lhote, metzinger, de segonzac. He is one of the many painters known as the school of paris. In 1913, he was invited to participate in an exhibition dedicated to cubism in berlin by the galerie der sturm, where he represented french contemporary art with 80 paintings and drawings. Also in 1913, his works were presented in budapest during a cubist exhibition. In 1914, with the outbreak of the first world war, he was interned as a citizen of a country enemy of france. The end of the war marks the beginning of the roaring twenties, the return of foreign collectors and their important purchases of modern works, an intense, creative and worldly life in a paris that wants to compete with berlin. He is one of the first to embark on the path of abstraction, in the 1920s his paintings are games of lines and plans, curves and strangely figurative.