2nd Oct, 2024 14:00
From the Studio: Works from 17 Artists' Estates
1
⊕ GEORGE MAYER-MARTON (HUNGARIAN 1897-1960)
GEORGE MAYER-MARTON (lots 1-11)
His appearance, accent and manner spoke of a lost and to us largely unknown Mitteleuropa. Always meticulously dressed in a suit and wearing a hat and polished shoes, he would arrive in the college with his leather briefcase and don his professional white coat.
Introduction
In Their Safe Haven', Hungarian artists in Britain from the 1930s, compiled and edited by Robert Waterhouse, the story of George Mayer-Marton's bleak story of dispossession is graphically pieced together from the artist's diaries and via first hand accounts. Born in Gyor, North Hungary, the artist's formative years had largely been spent in Austria or Germany. During the First World War he had served on the front line in the Austrian army, and - leading up to the Anschluss - he lived in Vienna, happily married and, as vice-president of the Hagenbund, he was a leading voice among contemporary artists.
But with Hitler's annexation of the country at the end of September 1938 together with Grete his wife he fled Vienna for London. Mayer-Marton's diaries evoke with withering honesty the reception he received and his despairing sense of dislocation: 'For the moment, London spells turmoil, noise, rows of double decker buses and a language one doesn't understand... We observe the English art of 'splendid isolation', their culture of bureaucratic niceties, good manners and cold souls; their complete consideration for others out of consideration for their own piece and quiet.' (Waterhouse, p. 74).
Eventually the couple set up home and a studio in St John's Wood, only for the premises to be hit by an incendiary bomb in 1940 during the Blitz. In the ensuing fire Mayer-Marton lost the vast majority of the work he had brought with him. At the end of the War he learnt of the murder of his and Grete's parents together with his brother in the Holocaust. Grete's death in a psychiatric hospital in Epsom in 1952 followed, a consequnce of her inability to recover either from her forced exile or the subsequent destruction of their London home.
Yet, despite such a succession of tragedies, Mayer-Marton was resolutely determined. He strove to replace the works lost in the London bombing, not simply with copies but because he felt challenged by the very different light and landscape of the British countryside, his lightness of touch and deftness of colour abundantly apparent in the present selection of works. He was also appointed a senior lecturer at Liverpool College of Art, a post in which he flourished.
His Liverpool students recalled Mayer-Marton's innovative approach to teaching. He introduced weekly 'Socratic method' seminars, challenging students with rhetorical questions ranging from 'Kant's moral imperative to Schopenhauer's aesthetic theory, the scientific ideas of Einstein, concepts of the primitive in art, abstraction, expressionism, the medieval guilds and so on... these seminars were a decade before the history and theory of art were incorporated into art school curricula in the 1960s' (Waterhouse, pp. 212-213).
In Liverpool he also introduced new technical know-how, in particular fresco painting and the re-introduction of Byzantine-style mosaic practices. These he deployed in a series of large scale ecclesiastical commissions in the north-west, including the large Crucifixion mural at the former church of the Holy Rosary, Oldham (1955), Pentecost now in Liverpool Metropolitan Cathedral, and the Crowning of St Clare at St Clare's Church, Blackley.
GEORGE MAYER-MARTON (HUNGARIAN 1897-1960)
VIEW OF CONCARNEAU
signed Gmayermarton lower right
watercolour and wash on paper
52.5 x 36.5cm; 20 3/4 x 14 1/2in
79.5 x 67cm; 31 1/4 x 26 1/2 (framed)
Mayer-Marton visited Concarneau, Brittany in 1950 and 1951.
Sold for £450
GEORGE MAYER-MARTON (lots 1-11)
His appearance, accent and manner spoke of a lost and to us largely unknown Mitteleuropa. Always meticulously dressed in a suit and wearing a hat and polished shoes, he would arrive in the college with his leather briefcase and don his professional white coat.
Introduction
In Their Safe Haven', Hungarian artists in Britain from the 1930s, compiled and edited by Robert Waterhouse, the story of George Mayer-Marton's bleak story of dispossession is graphically pieced together from the artist's diaries and via first hand accounts. Born in Gyor, North Hungary, the artist's formative years had largely been spent in Austria or Germany. During the First World War he had served on the front line in the Austrian army, and - leading up to the Anschluss - he lived in Vienna, happily married and, as vice-president of the Hagenbund, he was a leading voice among contemporary artists.
But with Hitler's annexation of the country at the end of September 1938 together with Grete his wife he fled Vienna for London. Mayer-Marton's diaries evoke with withering honesty the reception he received and his despairing sense of dislocation: 'For the moment, London spells turmoil, noise, rows of double decker buses and a language one doesn't understand... We observe the English art of 'splendid isolation', their culture of bureaucratic niceties, good manners and cold souls; their complete consideration for others out of consideration for their own piece and quiet.' (Waterhouse, p. 74).
Eventually the couple set up home and a studio in St John's Wood, only for the premises to be hit by an incendiary bomb in 1940 during the Blitz. In the ensuing fire Mayer-Marton lost the vast majority of the work he had brought with him. At the end of the War he learnt of the murder of his and Grete's parents together with his brother in the Holocaust. Grete's death in a psychiatric hospital in Epsom in 1952 followed, a consequnce of her inability to recover either from her forced exile or the subsequent destruction of their London home.
Yet, despite such a succession of tragedies, Mayer-Marton was resolutely determined. He strove to replace the works lost in the London bombing, not simply with copies but because he felt challenged by the very different light and landscape of the British countryside, his lightness of touch and deftness of colour abundantly apparent in the present selection of works. He was also appointed a senior lecturer at Liverpool College of Art, a post in which he flourished.
His Liverpool students recalled Mayer-Marton's innovative approach to teaching. He introduced weekly 'Socratic method' seminars, challenging students with rhetorical questions ranging from 'Kant's moral imperative to Schopenhauer's aesthetic theory, the scientific ideas of Einstein, concepts of the primitive in art, abstraction, expressionism, the medieval guilds and so on... these seminars were a decade before the history and theory of art were incorporated into art school curricula in the 1960s' (Waterhouse, pp. 212-213).
In Liverpool he also introduced new technical know-how, in particular fresco painting and the re-introduction of Byzantine-style mosaic practices. These he deployed in a series of large scale ecclesiastical commissions in the north-west, including the large Crucifixion mural at the former church of the Holy Rosary, Oldham (1955), Pentecost now in Liverpool Metropolitan Cathedral, and the Crowning of St Clare at St Clare's Church, Blackley.
GEORGE MAYER-MARTON (HUNGARIAN 1897-1960)
VIEW OF CONCARNEAU
signed Gmayermarton lower right
watercolour and wash on paper
52.5 x 36.5cm; 20 3/4 x 14 1/2in
79.5 x 67cm; 31 1/4 x 26 1/2 (framed)
Mayer-Marton visited Concarneau, Brittany in 1950 and 1951.
Auction: From the Studio: Works from 17 Artists' Estates, 2nd Oct, 2024
This one-of-a-kind auction focuses on the redisovery of 20th century artists, many of whom exhibited in leading West End galleries in their day, their works featuring in museums and art galleries around the world. All now deceased, with many having suffered undeserved obscurity since, their inclusion in From the Studio: Works from Artists' Estates puts the spotlight firmly back on them, to reveal a range of extraordinarily talented men and women.
Most of the artists were admired, promoted and written about by eminent 20th century art critics. Several were Jewish emigres, forced from their homelands to find their way anew in Britain and elsewhere. Many were close friends with other leading contemporary artists, sharing studios and ideas; some taught, several at the Royal College of Art. Throughout, their efforts both individually and together chart the myriad movements and counter movements that define the dynamic 20th century modernist landscape, ranging from Impressionism to Abstraction.
Viewing Times:
29th Sep 2024 12:00 - 16:00
30th Sep 2024 10:00 - 20:00
01st Oct 2024 10:00 - 17:00
