Tray (1961)

Miklós Somos attended the Academy of Fine Arts between 1951-1957, where his teacher was Géza Fónyi. He participated in national exhibitions from the mid-fifties. His individual style, which Géza Perneczky called lyrical realism, was related to constructivist painting and developed in the early 1960s. His suggestive paintings are characterised by a strong plasticity in relief, a tight structure, closed simplified forms and a reduced use of colour. In his works, landscapes, nudes and portraits, he goes beyond the specific features of reality. His paintings can be compared to those of Jenő Barcsay, Endre Domanovszky and Béla Kondor. In 1963 he also made ceramic paintings in Hódmezővásárhely. In the early seventies his painting was renewed. Instead of gloomy scenes, he painted cubo-surrealistic spaces and still lifes with a colourful palette, and by the 1980s his works had become even more relaxed. 

In the early 1960s, Somos was awarded the Derkovits Fellowship, which required him to spend a year in a factory or plant in the countryside to learn about and document life there. While fulfilling his duty and painting his figurative pictures, he went further in his prints and flirted with abstraction. In 1961, he made several paintings that testify to his knowledge of Surrealist and European School art. The European School was abolished by the state in 1949 and abstract art was banned. It was at the turn of the 1950s and 1960s that young artists rediscovered them. The members of the Zugló Circle (Imre Bak, István Nádler, etc.), Ilona Keserü or even János Fajó visited the studios of their older colleagues (Dezső Korniss, Miklós Lossonczy, Tihamér Gyarmathy, Ferenc Martyn, Lajos Kassák), who were happy to show them their paintings. At the same time, the first study trips to the West took place, which meant that the artists were unstoppable in their quest to get their bearings and learn about the latest trends. 

Despite this, the abstracts could not be exhibited until the mid-1960s, and Somos did not show his paintings of this type to the general public. The Tray (1961) may remind us of Paul Klee's playful surrealist works imitating children's drawings or African cave paintings. Klee worked in a variety of media - oil paint, watercolour, ink, pastel, etc. - and often combined them in one work, as Somos does here.