Nude (1927)

He studied to become a painter, attending classes with József Rippl-Rónai at the Haris köz Free School, and then attending Artúr Podolini-Volkmann's painting school on Váci út. In 1924 he enrolled at the Hungarian Academy of Fine Arts, where he was a student of the more liberal István Csók. In 1925, together with his friends (György Kepes, Dezső Korniss, Ernő Schubert, Béla Veszelszky, Lajos Vajda and Dezső Korniss), they founded a group of progressive young artists, with whom they caused a stir in the conservative Hungarian art scene. 

Together with Ernő Scubert, Trauner presented his work in February 1928 at the Mentor Bookshop. It was here that the Nude (1927), which mixed the results of Cubism and Expressionism, was shown. The nude female body, standing with her back to the ground, almost glows in the dark (blue, green, brown, red) studio environment. They got to know Lajos Kassák, who invited the young painters to the Munka-Circle. Compared to the others, Trauner was less active in the Munka-Circle, attending the matinees irregularly, perhaps because of this, unlike his friends, he did not fall out with Kassák. In any case, as early as 1929, the journal Munka published five ink drawings by Trauner, signed under the pseudonym DOR, and the Hungarian avant-garde master wrote the most extensively and warmly about his pictures in his 1930 review of the KUT's youth. 

Shortly afterwards, at the end of 1929, Trauner left Hungary and settled in Paris. Very few of his works from this short period in Hungary have survived or are known. Nevertheless, they provide an excellent overview of the stages in the development of Trauner's art. Beginning with the First Self-Portrait (1923), which suggests a familiarity with Chagall's painting, and then the studio nude (Nude, 1927), painted during his college years and which is most closely related to the similar themes of József Nemes Lampérth or the Eight. The ink drawings published in Munka draw on the lessons of German Expressionism and Russian Constructivism, and show the influence of George Grosz's political drawing in particular. Here, the figures emphasize the general (bourgeoisie, proletariat) rather than the individual; schematic faces; talkative attributes; humorous and somewhat didactic tone. It was through these drawings that Trauner came closer to constructivism and Kassák's pictorial architecture. In his later works, the typical motifs of the Hungarian avant-garde appear: the plate, the table, the pointing hand [e.g. Hungry Man, Still Life, Image I and II (1929)]. Image I and II already follow and elaborate on the principles of constructive surrealism and film montage, which were later developed in theory and practice by Vajda and Korniss. 

Arriving in Paris, Trauner was destitute, looking for work. By chance, he met Lazare Meerson, a Russian-born film set designer, who made him his assistant and introduced him to the world of film. Their meeting came at an important moment in film history, when Trauner was working on the very first French talkies. He was involved in Buñuel's first feature film, The Golden Age (1930), but the real launch of his career came with René Clair's Under the Roofs of Paris (1930). He went on to work with a number of famous French directors (René Clair, Julien Duvivier, Marc Allégret, Jacques Feyder and Claude Autant-Lara). He met Jacques Prévert, with whom he formed a lifelong friendship, and also met the composer Joseph Kozma, who arrived in Paris in 1933. 

It was then that the legendary "foursome" of French cinema history was formed. Together with the film director Marcel Carné, Prévert, Trauner and the composer Maurice Jaubert (later replaced by Joseph Kozma) created the so-called "French Cinema". Trauner was a lover of Paris, he walked around the city with his camera around his neck, collecting motifs for his sets, like Brassai and Kertész.

Trauner then went to Hollywood and the 'Billy Wilder era' began, working on eight films between 1957 and 1978. Among them were several world hits, including Witness for the Prosecution (1957), Someone Who Loves Her Hot (1957), Irma, You Sweetheart (1963), The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes (1970) and, of course, The Bachelor Apartment (1960), which won Trauner an Oscar, mainly for the design and execution of the football field-sized office space in the insurance company's headquarters in the film. 

He returned to France in 1974 and continued to work non-stop, now with the latest French directors (Luc Besson, Bertrand Tavernier). He never completely separated from his "first" country, Hungary. He was on good terms with Kozma and knew Brassai and Kertész well. Fate sometimes brought him together with filmmakers from a Hungarian background. In 1981 he visited his homeland. An exhibition of his works was held at the Hungarian National Gallery, and András Kepes made a television portrait film of him entitled Trau. At the request of Sándor Simó, he designed the sets and visuals for the director's film Viaduct (1982).