Circles (1960)

In 1911 he received a degree in mechanical engineering from the Technical University of Budapest. Between 1911 and 1914, he studied painting in Paris at the École des Beaux Arts and the École des Arts Décoratifs with Maurice Denis, Lucien Simon and Henri Martin. In 1913, he was awarded the bronze medal at the Milan Triennale of Applied Arts. In the summer of 1913, he stayed in Nagybánya, then worked at the School of Applied Arts under Aladár Körösfői-Kriesch. At the end of the year he returned to Paris, where he was interned during the First World War. In 1919, he worked with József Rippl-Rónai at the Fonyod Artists' Camp. From 1920 he painted regularly in Badacsony. Between 1944 and 1947 he lived in Dömsöd. Pál Bor was also involved in art theory and criticism. His writings were published in Nyugat and Magyar Írás. He was the art editor of the latter. He was a founding, regular and board member of the KUT (New Society of Fine Artists). 

At the beginning of Bor's career he painted post-impressionist pictures, and in the 1920s he created cubist works. His work was characterised by an analytical analysis of the view, seeking a balance between post-impressionism and cubism in the way he built his pictures. He sought synthesis, which is why he was involved in all genres of art. His applied art and sculpture reflect the spirit of Art Deco. He also worked as a decorator. He created mural designs and experimented with the glass-concrete technique.

Bor's abstract work was made during a period in which the artist was experimenting with the technique of coloured glass painting. The Circles can be compared to the orphist paintings of Robert and Sonja Delaunay. Orphism was an artistic movement that promoted the primacy of colour and light, focusing on pure abstraction and bright colours, as in R. Delaunay's "Discs" and "Cosmic Circles". Delaunay believed that if a simple colour truly defines its own complementary colour, it does so not by refracting light but by bringing all the colours of the prism to life together.