Endre Rozsda

Endre Rozsda (; 18 November 1913, Mohács – 16 September 1999, Paris) was a Hungarian-French painter.

Life

Endre Rozsda was born in Mohács, a small city along the Danube in Hungary. His childhood memories marked his entire artistic work. The creative method he developed helped him to conjure a unique surrealistic world based on his memories: Out of memory and light I weave a dense fabric. I look steadily at it until it comes to life and stares back at me, until it rises up in front of me. It's time that I want to get hold of, arrange and evaluate. Time is that bright, multi-colored oblivion where joys and sufferings turn into precious beads. Around time's beads I twist the ivy of my own memories. I don't want to assess or explain anything. I want to understand. I lay my head against time and listen to what it tells me.

Rejecting his family's plans for a career, he decided to become a painter at an early age. He acquired the basic skills of the trade in the school of Vilmos Aba-Novák. His first solo exhibition, held in the 'Tamás' gallery at age 23 (1936), was a great success. Critics praised his work and the Museum of Fine Arts, Budapest bought one of his paintings. "Rozsda is a stunning major talent. Few have ever painted old women and beggars the way he does. … In some of his beautiful images a veil of fog and light is woven, turning reality into a melodic chimera", a critic writing for Est praised the young painter.

His early artistic period, closely tied to Hungarian post-impressionism, came to an end after attending a Béla Bartók concert. His early successes notwithstanding, after listening to Bartók he came to understand that "I am not my own contemporary". With sculptor Lajos Barta, he moved to Paris (1938), where he continued his studies at the École de Louvre. There he befriended Árpád Szenes, Vieira da Silva and Françoise Gilot (later Picasso's companion for a decade) who became his student for a while. He also became acquainted with Max Ernst and Alberto Giacometti. His thinking underwent fundamental change and came closer to Surrealism. Following the German occupation, he was forced to return to Budapest (1943) where his unique surrealistic style fully matured (Sacred and Profane Love, 1947; Musée des Beaux-Arts de Dijon).

After the war, he played an active role in the establishment of the European School and showed his work regularly in group shows. According to art historian, Krisztina Passuth, Endre Rozsda was one of the most prominent figures of the European School. In 1948 the group disbanded because the new regime did not tolerate abstract surrealist art. In the next few years Rozsda worked on book illustrations, painted in secret and, obviously, could not show his work in public.

Following the suppression of the Hungarian Revolution of 1956 he permanently returned to France. He came into contact with Raymond Queneau and André Breton, who wrote an introduction for his exhibition at the ‘Furstenberg’ Gallery (1957). He participated in the International Exhibition of Surrealism in Milan (1961). A few years later he won the Copley-Prize (1964) from a jury composed of Hans Arp, Roberto Matta, Max Ernst, Man Ray, Roland Penrose, Sir Herbert Read and Marcel Duchamp.

From the start of the 1960s, Rozsda's work underwent another change: the tensions and harmonies of architectonic structures and swirling colors created a richly detailed microcosm. In his effort "to control time" and dissolve reality in his imagination he continued to rely on Surrealism, although his means of expression became increasingly characterized by lyrical abstraction.

In 1970 he became a French citizen. In 1979 he set up a studio in Le Bateau-Lavoir and continued to work there until the end of his life.

Endre Rozsda's studio at Bateau-Lavoir, a famous Parisian artists' commune.

The last exhibition he attended in person was held in Várfok Gallery and opened by the writer Péter Esterházy (1999): Just like nature itself, these pictures are difficult to disclose. They necessitate absorbed looking, long and silent. (What doesn't…) And still, they speak at the first glance. They obviously don't say the same thing, but they seem to have a common melodic structure. And this common melodic structure – I may be wrong, and once more abusively speak only about myself – is rather anachronistic, does not conform with their time: it seems that Rozsda's pictures say that the world is beautiful. Maybe this is precisely surrealism. Surrealism as ethical attitude?" ... I'd like to wrap my books into these canvases, they would feel good in there.

Rozsda is buried in Montmartre Cemetery, Paris.

From post-Impressionism to Surrealism (1932–1937) Endre Rozsda recalled the beginnings as follows: "I started to learn painting in the Free School of Aba-Novák. I became his apprentice. This was the most important artistic and human experience in all my life. It was a great stroke of luck that I learned painting outside the Academy of Fine Arts were training was extremely academic at the time. Aba-Novák was a good painter, although far from revolutionary. He had a rich and free personality."

His style differed from contemporary academic trends and the avant-garde. During this period, he encountered artistic influences that affected his subsequent work and thematic approach.

The turn to surrealism (1938–1944)

This is how Rozsda recalled this shift: "By pure coincidence, just before my trip to Paris I met two painters, a couple: Imre Ámos and Margit Anna. I had no program for the night. They invited me to a concert at the Academy of Music. ‘Bartók is performing tonight’, they said. Bartók was just a name for me. I had no idea who he was. (...) Bartók played one of his own pieces with his wife: Sonata composed for two pianos and percussions, I believe one of the most important works of the 20th century. It was a world premiere. Where I sat, I had an excellent view of Bartók's hands. I was mesmerized. I had never thought there was music outside of Bach, Mozart and Mussorgsky. I became completely drunk on that music. (...) I understood immediately that I am not my own contemporary."

European School (1945–1948) In pre-war Hungary few people showed interest in abstract and surrealist art. When, after returning from Paris in 1943, Rozsda showed his work, critics were confused. "Yet another abstract show. Not long ago, involving an exhibition in ‘Alkotás Művészház’, we gave a cursory overview of abstraction, i.e., an art form devoid of any sense of reality and the pastime of a bygone generation", one of them wrote.

Years of proscription (1949–1956)

Following the establishment of the communist regime, nonfigurative and surrealist art was blacklisted. The European School was forced to end its activities.

This is how Rozsda remembers this period of his life: "With the establishment of the communist regime, events accelerated at a breakneck speed. In 1948 we simply had to disband the group. Our last meeting was held in the Japan Café. The next day we placed the following ad in the papers: A European was murdered in Japan. That was the end".

The exhibition earned the artist considerable recognition and in the images vibrating with dizzying details one of the critics celebrated that through them surrealism again demonstrates its most strident and powerful side. In 1960 he was invited to a group show, Antagonism, and the catalog foreword was written by Herbert Reed.

Around this time, Rozsda became acquainted with the art historian and perhaps the most respected collector of surrealist art, Arturo Schwarz, who remembered their meeting as follows: "André Breton advised me to discover 'this young man who has the keys to a marvelous world'. I remember his exact words, as the term 'marvelous' had a very special meaning for André.”

Thanks to this connection, one of Rozsda's works (Windows) was shown at the Galleria Schwarz in Milan in an international surrealist exhibition curated by André Breton in 1961.

In an interview he said that for him Surrealism represented primarily "a research space" and intellectual stimulation. His second show at the Furstenberg Gallery (1963) displayed the results of this exploratory work, although subsequently his painting took another turn and developed further in the direction of lyrical abstraction. Following the shift, he asked Breton whether his work could still be considered surrealist. “As it remains your perception of reality, you are a surrealist by necessity”, is how Rozsda recalled Breton's answer.

From the start of the 1970s his paintings feature more detail than ever before. Recalling his first adventures with photography as a child, he revealed: “From age 15 or 16, I developed and printed my own images. Slowly by slowly, I started to feel a dual attraction: I took pictures in haste and rushed to develop the film. I realized that the camera acts as a magnifying glass, that with all the details it creates extremely beautiful images – at least for me. I believe this is the foundation of my painting. The desire to create details is still there."

Graphic works In his study of Rozsda’s graphic work, a prominent student of Surrealism, Sarane Alexandrian started out with the premise that, in contrast to other artists where draftsmanship and painting are intertwined, Endre Rozsda "is an artist in a dual sense. In his case, the draftsman and the painter are almost two different persons. They work in parallel worlds, both creating distinct visual universes without the one connecting to the other ".

Indeed, this arc of transformation that led Rozsda's painting from post-Impressionism and Surrealism through lyrical abstraction is not found in his graphic work. This part of his oeuvres constitutes a separate realm created whole by a sensibility described as surrealist by Breton in that famous conversation. Throughout his career, Rozsda made figurative and abstract drawings and often a unique combination of the two, although this variability in subject matter and technique does not contradict the realization that this part of his oeuvres is inspired by the same surrealist ambition aimed at the liberation of the imagination and the representation of the hidden occupants of the mind. This is true even when he created with ease subtle drawings composed in a playful rhythm of simple forms and with sensual references, or when he brought to life ominously swirling fantasies populated by imaginary beings with extraordinary precision.

Studying the differences between Rozsda's paintings and drawings, Sarane Alexandrian discovered another intriguing feature. In some "of the drawings we find a quality not seen in his paintings, or hidden with such perfection as to make it invisible at first glance: humor. With a simple line of the pencil or pen, Rozsda is capable of mocking various aspects of observed reality. (...) In most cases, his sense of humor works in the world of imagination; he likes to create shocking human forms: a trumpet-mouthed figure whose chest and thighs are covered with female breasts. There is also a grotesque trapeze-shaped woman resembling Mama Ubu. His male portrait, showing a man with an open mouth yawning (or yelling?) with circle-shaped wrinkles around the chin, is simultaneously tragic and comic". Alexandrian draws the following conclusion: "This artist dares to be ambiguous and go out on a limb where pain and pleasure, laughter and terror converge".

In contrast to his paintings, his photographs do not show dramatic stylistic shifts either. He was inspired by the same thing throughout his life: the creation of new images through a close observation of details and a combination of various visual components. Consequently, he often photographed reflections, storefronts and windows. Often, he exposed the same frame several times, in many cases turning the camera by 90 or 180 degrees. Of all his images with multiple exposures the ones combining one of his paintings with the trees and houses surrounding his studio are of particular interest.

These "vision-within-a-vision” type photographs appear to be attempts at capturing the fleeting moment of transfiguration between natural and pictorial reality.

In his will Rozsda left a large number of his photographs, photo negatives and transparencies to the Hungarian Photography Museum.