Biography
Gyitta Gyenes was born in Budapest and started painting with Bertalan Karlovszky in 1906. He later studied in Baia Mare, Vienna and Rome. From 1910 he exhibited in several places: he participated in the exhibitions of the Kálmán Könyves Salon, the House of Artists and the National Salon. In 1915, he participated in the World's Fair in San Francisco, where he received a silver medal.
In the twenties, as the suitor of his daughter, he met Attila József, whose portrait he painted. In 1928 he became a member of the KUT (New Society of Fine Artists), the most advanced fine arts association of the period, in which he exhibited with Róbert Berény, Dezső Czigány and István Szőnyi, among others. In 1937, the Tamás Gallery organized an exhibition for him. He was a member of the OMIKE (National Hungarian Israelite Public Cultural Association), in which he took part in all its exhibitions between 1939 and 1944.
In 1941 he was admitted to the National Association of Hungarian Artists. Prior to the occupation, he held his last exhibition in May 1943 at the Kossuth Lajos Street Salon in the Studio, where he presented forty new tempera paintings. After the German occupation in 1944, hiding and forced labor awaited him and his family. It was during this time that he made his famous Antifascist series. More than ten years after his death, in 1978, the National Gallery organized an exhibition of his works.
