Janos Mattis Teutsch and The Hungarian Avant-Garde

Louis Stern Fine Arts, 2002. First edition. Trade paperback. Very Good. Janos Mattis Teutsch: Born 1884 in Breslau. Attended the carpentry school in Kronstadt, and the art school in Budapest 1901-02. Studied sculpture at the Bayerische Akademie der bildenden Kunste in Munich, 1902-05. Became a teacher at the Industrial Gymnasium in Kronstadt in 1908. Between 1908 and 1915 he gradually shifted from naturalistic painting with religious and ethical themes to an abstract form of representation. In 1913, he exhibited in the Sturm show in Budapest, and had his first MA exhibition in 1917. Some of his pictures were printed in MA. In 1917, MA published an album of prints featuring twelve of his linocuts. His second show, in 1918, also took place in the MA building in Budapest. He had shows in Berlin and Vienna in 1921. After World War I, he returned to his hometown, in 1918 he joined Der Sturm. Began working with sculpture in 1920. Took part in the 1921 Der Sturm exhibition. Shows in Paris, Chicago, Rome, and Berlin. Visited the Bauhaus in 1925. Editor of Integral magazine. His theoretical writings were published in 1931. From 1944 to 1949, taught at the Kronstadt Section of the Romanian Society of Visual Artists, where he was also director from 1957-59. Died in 1960 in Brasov. Teutsch was a painter of landscape. His experiments, gleaned from the vaious guises of the European avant garde, never diluted his love of the Hungarian countryside. The rigor of his compositional filter kept the sentimental at bay and exalts the power of color. The subtle pleasure of viewing this artist derives from the way he mediates between the imperatives of his own sentiments about his native landscape, and the broader imperatives of historical avant garde art making".