POLYA, TIBOR (1886-1937)

“In Vino Veritas” (c.1920)
Oil on canvas
30 x 40cm
Signed lower left
*private collection, Double Bay
 
Tibor Pólya was an important Hungarian Post-Impressionist & Graphic Artist. He was active between the two World Wars. His works have a drawing-like narrative style, often with humorous tones. Besides being a graphic artist, he was a painter, a caricaturist & an illustrator. Pólya studied in Budapest, Szolnok & Paris and was a member of the artist colonies of Kecskemét and Szolnok. He once received a scholarship in Rome. He was a good friend of the poster artist and designer Elek Falus. Pólya painted in Post-Impressionist style, he drew caricatures for magazines, & created illustrations for books. Pólya was also the artistic supervisor of an Art Deco magazine, called Magyar Magazin.  He designed posters for political parties, although he was not really politically-minded. He got commissions for commercial products as well. His artworks were exhibited several times in the Ernst Museum in Budapest. Pólya’s posters are always realistic, figurative and narrative. He likes to depict humoruous scenes, for example on his newspaper posters, the careless reader who strongly focuses on the newspaper, thus gets in trouble.  At first, his style was under the influence of Art Nouveau, then modernism & the classicist, elegant, art deco-influenced style of the 1930s. He was inspired by the functional designs of Berény, Bortnyik and Kassák, and by the elegant art deco style of Konecsni as well – & he developed his own style, using these influences. In this second period of his career, he has created splendid designs for commercial products & companies; his poster for Modiano is an outstanding example. He also created extraordinary tourism posters that showed moments of Modern big city life during the 1920s & 1930s. This stunning, quirky interior scene, coming from a prominent Jewish collection, reminds me particularly of Paul Cezanne's iconic "Card Players" (1890) & several works by Van Gogh, both in style, subject & palette.