The Twelve - Illustration for Aleksandr Blok: The Twelve (1923)

Between 1913 and 1915, Bortnyik studied intermittently at the Kernstok-Vaszary-Rippl-Rónai Free School, where he was most influenced by Kernstok, one of the member of the artistic group, the Eight. In 1917, he met Lajos Kassák and became involved with the MA magazine. He took part in exhibitions at Ma and regularly published the journal's work. After the fall of the Hungarian Soviet Republic, he followed Kassák to Vienna. In 1921, his MA-Album was published, which Kassák regarded as the par excellence of 'pictorial architecture' and praised as the programmatic work of Hungarian Constructivism. In 1922 Bortnyik moved to Weimar to make contact with the Bauhaus, and in 1922 and 1923 he showed his works in Herwarth Walden's Sturm Gallery in Berlin. In 1925 he had an exhibition at the Mentor bookshop in Budapest. 1925-1926 he was one of the founders of the absurd theatre, the Green Donkey. In 1928 Bortnyik founded his private school of graphic design, called Műhely, where he taught according to Bauhaus principles. In 1933, he published his own magazine, Plakát (Poster).

'Aladar Komjat gave me a translation of Alexander Blok's epic "The Twelve", translated by Sarolta Lányi in Berlin, because few of us knew Russian at that time', Bortnyik said in an interview. Ten woodcuts were created for the symbolist epic of the October Revolution, of which Bortnyik also drew three larger versions in ink. The ink drawing you see here is a foretaste of these. In the present drawing, the man contrasts with the geometrically dissected cold forms of the cityscape, and the deep blacks and luminous whites of the paper accentuate this even more. The biblical symbolism of the twelve bayonets in triple units represents the beginning of a new age, an offensive force ready for battle. Bortnyik's work reflects the influence of German Expressionism. In the signature, Bényi (S)ándor also stands for Bortnyik, whose agitational drawings were published under this pseudonym in the Vienna journal Egység. According to Éva Bajkay, Bortnyik preferred to use his pseudonym for the illustrations in Weimbar because he was already considering returning home.