Prayers.

PERLROTT-CSABA, VILMOS

1924

Oil on canvas. Signed and dated by the artist upper left.

Important painting by this significant Hungarian artist. A rare Jewish scene. A deeply evocative painting depicting men at their morning prayers, clad in their prayer-shawls. An open window alongside with the townscape fully visible. One of the most prominent representative of the Hungarian avant-garde style, Vilmos Csaba Perlrott (1880-1955) led an extremely productive artistic life and was very receptive to the new style trends. Active in the Nagybánya artists' colony, he received a scholarship to the Académie Julian and the Académie de la Grande Chaumiere in Paris, which he left in 1908 to join the circle around Henri Matisse. Heavily influenced by Matisse's style, Perlrott-Csaba gave up his former neo-Impressionist style in favor of Fauvism and showed in the Salons d'Automne of 1907 and 1911. A study trip in 1911 led Perlrott-Csaba to Spain, where he was deeply influenced by El Greco. Through the 1920s he traveled Europe with his wife, the artist Margit Graber, settling in the artist's colony of Szentendre, near Budapest. He continued to summer in Nagybánya, near the border of Transylvania, where he painted "en plein air" in his distinctive Cubist-Fauvist style. This is one of a bare handful of paintings produced by this Hungarian-Jewish artist that reflects his cultural and religious roots.