Vilmos Huszár (1884-1960)

Description

Oil on canvas, 58 x 48½ cm, signed upper left and dated 1910.
Hungarian born painter Vilmos Huszár (Budapest 1884-1960 Hierden (The Netherlands), decorative artist, typographer and writer, active in the Netherlands. He studied at the Academy of Applied Arts in Budapest from 1901 to 1903, and then at the academy in Munich (1904). For a short period he was a member of the artists’ colonies of Tecsö and Nagybánya in Hungary, before moving to The Hague in 1906 as a portrait painter to the local aristocracy. Huszár’s interest in the work of van Gogh and in modern developments in Paris and London gradually led him from portraits and landscapes in bright colours, such as Reclining Female (1913; Otterlo, Kröller-Müller), to an abstract style in painting and stained glass influenced by Cubism and Futurism. He met other influential artists including Piet Mondrian and Theo van Doesburg, both central figures in establishing the De Stijl movement with Vilmos in 1917. Vilmos also co-founded the De Stijl magazine and designed the cover for the first issue.