János Vaszary

Vaszary was an excellent colourist and his imaginative art, sensitive to modern trends, merits him an important place in the history of twentieth century Hungarian painting. A pupil of Bertalan Szekely at the Budapest School of Decorative Arts, Vaszary moved on to study in Munich and Paris at the Académie Julian. His style often changed but was always at the forefront of modernism. Vaszary was a founding member of the Szolnok Artists Colony on the edge of the Great Plain in 1902. In Nagaybanya he shifted to a new stress on figurative painting rather than landscape. During the course of his artistic career he explored a wide range of avant-garde artistic styles, including Art Nouveau, Realism, Impressionism, Expressionism, Fauvism and Post-Impressionism. It was in Paris as a member of the Group of Eight, and inspired by the Ecole de Paris and notably Dufy, Matisse, Derain and van Dongen that Vaszary developed his decorative style. Representing scenes from fashionable metropolitain life and seaside resorts, from the early 1900s, Vaszary's work became increasingly characterised by rapid, loose brushstrokes achieving a harmonious balance between figurative and plein air painting, as evident in the present work.

Montmartre combines French influences with Vaszary’s own characteristically adventurous approach to perspective and pictorial depth. Boldly employing layering devices inspired by Japanese woodcuts, Vazary challenges the traditional rules of composition.