Pre-War Figurative Art
(1922 - 1950)
Signature
Signed bottom right: Cserepes I.
Bibliography
Exhibited and reproduced:
Exhibited
111th Group exhibition: Aurél Bernáth, István Cserepes, Ödön Márffy, Viktor Belányi, László Kemény, Miklós Kaszás
1930. március
Ernst Múzeum
Budapest
Hungarian Paintings from the Saphier Collection, 1899-1950
2004
Szombathelyi Képtár
Szombathely
István Cserepes went from iron worker to artist. From 1926, he attended the Academy of Fine Arts, where his master, István Csók, guided his career. From the following year onwards, he exhibited 1-1 pictures at major group exhibitions, but he really attracted the attention of critics and the public after his 1929 collection exhibition, where his pastel works were shown.
Most of his paintings are landscapes: suburban factory yards, smoky railway stations, cold quays and later Lake Balaton. They are formally grouped with his works entitled Factory on the Danube bank, Potted Old Town (Suburb) or On the Embankment. The figures in these works are solid, and are characterised by the thicker, violet-blue contours surrounding them (typical of fauves), their similar colours (purples, blues, greens, yellows), the use of light to soften and break up the forms, and the splintering brushwork that gives the paintings a graphic effect.