Passuth Krisztina – Szücs György – Gosztonyi Ferenc szerk.: Hungarian Fauves from Paris to Nagybánya 1904–1914 (A Magyar Nemzeti Galéria kiadványai 2006/1)
HUNGARIAN FAUVES CASE STUDIES - JUDIT BOROS: The Synthesizer. Vilmos Perlrott Csaba's Painting
Since he arrived in Paris after the closing of the Salon d'Automne of 1906, he just missed the opportunity to see the Gauguin-collection, which had been put on display there. Shortly afterwards, in the spring of 1907, he had a chance to make up for the lost opportunity, when the collection was shown in Budapest. Initially, Manet's paintings exerted the most powerful influence on him: in one of his recollections, he mentioned the compositions Olympia and The Balcony explicitly. 24 Since in January 1907 he was hospitalized for an extended period of time, 25 he only had three months to prepare for the spring show of the Salon des Indépendants. One of the paintings 26 he exhibited there under the title Portrait d'un peintre is thought to be identical with the composition currently known by the title Portrait of Sándor Ziffer. (Cat. No. 203) Although we have not been able to identify the other three, the possibility cannot be excluded that the title Étude de portrait referred to the work now known as Self-portrait, which shows Perlrott in a cap. (Cat. No. 198) Both compositions confirm that he was still under the influence of Manet's art. Chronologically, Self-portrait may have come first (possibly completed at the turn of 1906 and 1907), to be followed by Ziffer's portrait, which may have been executed sometime in the spring of 1907. In comparison to his previous works, the latter painting signified a huge step forward in Perlrott's career. In the composition, which testified for the painter's familiarity with the artistic means of Manet, as well as of the Nabis and, to some extent, also of Matisse, Perlrott was experimenting with several artistic ideas simultaVilmos Perlrott Csaba: Self-portrait, cca. 7907 neously. One of them concerned the composition in space or plane; Car. No. 198. the other challenged the traditional treatment of the subject and the Vilmos Perlrott Csaba: Nude Reclining, 1907. Private collection
