Béla Kádár

Budapest 1877 – 1956 Budapest, attributed
Musicians
Tempera on panel
68 x 43.5 cm
signed on lower right

The Hungarian painter and draughtsman Béla Kádár is considered one of the most important visual artists of the avant-garde of the 20th century. He studied at the Academy of Fine Arts in Budapest and travelled to France and Germany, eventually moving to Berlin, where he presented his works for the first time in a solo exhibition in 1923. His paintings combine elements of German Expressionism, Constructivism, Cubism, and Primitivism, among others.

Kádár often depicted female musicians as nudes, especially a pair of people as in this painting. It shows a girl with a guitar in an abstract pictorial space, which is given spatiality by the table with still life and the veil-like cloth draped over the armchair. The smaller figure in profile in the foreground only steps halfway into the pictorial space and presents the viewer with a bright red apple. Is this possibly a small putto who, although depicted without facial features, is listening to the guitarist’s playing? The musician appears to be completely absorbed in her playing, as the gentle position of the instrument on her shoulder and the downturned head in profile reveal. Her almond-shaped eye gazes enraptured forwards; she takes no notice of the viewers. This emotionally charged, poetic work reveals details of Hungarian folklore, oscillating between cubist abstraction and primitivist figuration, and thus achieves an extraordinary aesthetic effect.