Page 42 - Studio International - May 1965

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various techniques and styles. Among these were the
drop curtain for the Ballet Gala Performance in the
Royal Theatre in Stockholm (1949), the Zodiac Clock
in Vastertorp (Enamel, 4 x 4 metres, 1950). a ceiling
i 'l i painting in the City Hotel of Lysekil (Stucco-Lustre.
:,
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170 m , 1952), a Marble lntarsia in Hogbotorp near
Gothenburg (9.20 x 8.40 metres, 1953/55), a frieze
in the Eriksdal School in Skovde (Enamel 1.50 x 14
metres. 1955), a painting for the Students' Union in
Gothenburg, 1956 (oil on canvas, 2.50 x 6.75 metres),
a wall-painting (Stucco-Lustre, 1 .40 x 7.50 metres)
for the Harryda State School, 1957 /58, an Enamel
painting for the Prison Administration in Skogome,
1957 /58. an Enamel for the Town Hall in Starkarr
(5.90 x 2.90 metres, 1960), for Stockholm's Savings
Bank (5 x 2.50 metres, 1961 ), etc., etc.
His has been a leading name in the avant-garde art of
Sweden from the 'forties to the present day, and his
fame is solidly founded in the country of his adoption.
What had been expected of Nemes on his return to
Stockholm was a retrospective exhibition which should
give a survey of the whole of his work up to that time.
The capital city of his adopted homeland intended to
honour him. But to be fully accepted as a leading
artist he had to wait until his large retrospective
exhibition in Konstnarshuset, Stockholm, 1962, and
the retrospective exhibition in Lund, 1963, his largest
exhibition hitherto. What the artist did exhibit in 1958
was a collection of works belonging almost exclusively
to the years 1957 and 1958, many of them of con­
siderable size, and all new ventures into the region of
the visionary. The whole was a demonstration bearing
witness to a remarkable vitality, to an inexhaustible
power of artistic invention, to a fearlessness in con­
.. fronting artistic problems and resource in finding their
' restlessly active and profoundly concerned with the
j.
formal solutions.* Further, it bore testimony to a spirit
crisis of his time-a rare example of an abundant
talent in all the purity and originality of its primary urge
to create.
Competent critics, viewing his work of today and
2 yesterday, in one of the great art centres-Paris,
London or New York-will certainly hail Nemes as a
great artist who has produced work of the highest
quality at every stage of his development. And not
only that. They will perceive that his is one of the
voices that speak with authority of the condition of
modern man. for Nemes himself is one who in his own
destiny has shared that condition to the full. In his
work, life and art are fused into an organic whole.
His work speaks to us of unrest and suffering, of
flight and defeat, but also of faith in a creative will and
of re-birth in the spirit, of anguish and of infinite regret
for a world laid in ruins, but also of confidence in a
life renewed and ennobled, towards which, all con­
traries reconciled. our world is moving, led by its own
1 resolute spirit of scientific enquiry and holding fast to
Pr,mary Image 1963
Mixed technique on canvas the integrity of its own soul, and, like the artist himself,
160 x 130 cm.
constantly trusting that a higher meaning lies hidden
2 in the beauty and cruelty of existence. To grasp and to
Black Horoscope 1964
Mixed technique on canvas interpret this inner meaning forms both theme and
160 x 130 cm content of the artist's work. For if we read aright in
J the pictures of Endre Nemes they tell us that, from the
Geological Happenmg 1963 first beginnings of his art, while he was yet a seeker,
Mixed technique on canvas
160 x 130 cm. then through his wanderings when, three times in
flight to find a new home and a new field of labour, he
4
Black Layers 1964
Mixed technique on canvas
200 x 160 cm. • The Express,on,st. Surrealist and Picassoesque phases of his development.
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