Dynamic Composition Tihamér Gyarmathy

The Pécs born Gyarmathy was a significant figure of abstract art unfolding after World War II. After graduating from the academy, he acquainted Max Bill in Zurich during his study trip to Europe between 1937 and 1939. After the war, he joined the so-called European School, which he left in 1946 and became a member of an artists’ group called Gallery of the 4 Cardinal Points, initiated by art writer Ernő (Ernst) Kállai. The fact that he already had a solo exhibition in 1947 marks his early success. His works from this period are strongly influenced by Kállay’s concept of bio-romanticism which fully manifested in his exhibition New Worldview and his volume A természet rejtett arca [The Hidden Face of Nature] in 1947. A representative piece of this period is Dynamic Composition from 1946. It is as if through the free-flowing, biomorphic forms filling the picture plane, we could get a real glimpse into the “secret workshop of nature”. This ideal program of the unity of structures of micro- and macrocosm and nonfigurative art stayed substantial in Gyarmathy’s later art as well.