Potrait of a man (1930)

Gitta Gyenes is one of the most talented Hungarian female artists (if gender is to be emphasised). In Nagybánya, at the beginning of her career, she followed the Nagybánya post-impressionist tradition. Then, in the 1920s, she made numerous caricatures of Hungarian public figures for newspapers. She later said that she had unwittingly offended many people. In 1914-1915, Gyenes took part in the World's Fair in San Francisco (USA), which was organised to celebrate the opening of the Panama Canal. She was awarded a silver medal in a large international field. On the occasion of her first collective exhibition (National Salon, 1917), Arthur Elek wrote a review of her art. Gyenes met Attila József in 1924, and their friendship is attested by a beautiful portrait (it is rumoured that Attila József was in love with her, and later with his daughter WalleszLuca). In the 1920s and 1930s, Gyenes became close to progressive movements, touched by Cubism and Expressionism, which she combined in her works. Meanwhile, in their Budapest apartment, Gyenes hosted art and literary gatherings called the Gyenes Literary Salon, which attracted young literary talent, where they read their new writings to each other and socialised. Art Deco is perhaps closest to her in the 1930s, and Artur Elek associates the paintings of Gitta Gyenes with the French Marie Laurencin, but without all the connotations. In 1937, the Tamás Gallery was the home of her paintings. Her last exhibition before the war opened in May 1943, where she showed 40 new tempera paintings. It was then that she received the highest praise for her art from Arthur Elek. After the German occupation in March 1944, persecution awaited her and her family. In 1945 he joined the Hungarian Communist Party and became a member of the Art Workers' Union. From October to November 1946, she organized a collective exhibition of her works at the Fészek Klub. In May 1948, the Free Association of Hungarian Artists organized a collective exhibition of her work in the old Műcsarnok (Kunsthalle). 

Gyenes's first period was influenced by post-impressionism, but in the 1920s she moved closer to progressive movements. The above Portrait of a Man was presumably based on István Dési Huber's Self-Portrait in ink from 1928. The man is depicted in the same premier plan, facing the viewer, with a broad forehead and a self-conscious expression. Dési made the drawing on the occasion of his 34th birthday, as a sign that his art had found itself, but at the same time his gaze betrays anger and anxiety. In Gyenes's drawing, the man's face is less 'linear', modelled more with shadows, and he looks at the observer with a mocking, slightly contemptuous smile. Gyenes combines and "softens" the stylistic features of Cubism and Expressionism.