Naïve Art & Primitivism
(1800 - 1980)
Signature
Signed bottom right: Varga Hanna
Provenance
Saphier collection
After high school she graduated from the College of Applied Arts in 1939. Her teachers were Endre Domanovszky, Jenő Haranghy, Aladár Kaczián and Sándor Muhits. She often brought her pictures to Pál Molnár C. for judging. She participated in the spring exhibition of the Kunsthalle in 1943. To earn a living, she took a job as a technical draughtswoman, but in her spare time she painted continuously. She had several solo exhibitions and was included in group exhibitions almost every year.
Hanna Varga's favourite subject is always the object or event that suddenly captured her. Her favourite medium is tempera. In many of her one, two and multi-figure compositions: she strives to show the relationship between man and nature, man and urban environment. Her use of impressionist elements in the relationship between man and nature is notable. At other times, she opts for the flat pictorial structure, unmixed colours and informality of naïve painting. Some of her works have a grotesque tone, partly as a characterisation of a figure, partly as a specificity of an interesting situation. At other times her paintings have a tragic or playful atmosphere. She often turns to music or literature for inspiration.
Hanna Varga's frequent subject is the everyday life of Kőbánya. Her detailed style of painting In front of a Store, her arbitrary use of perspective and her bright, clear colours are stylistic characteristics of naive painting. This time, she does not pile up the characters, but tiny little patterns, from the varied fabrics in the window of the textile shop to the various cat's claws in the street. It could be now, it could be thirty years ago. The old lady, perhaps overdressed for the weather, in her single autumn coat, leather gloves and bag under her arm, and her newspaper-wrapped packet, perhaps walking in a no-passing zone, is about to step off the pavement. And it is as if the artist is capturing a moment of hesitation.