Janos MATTIS-TEUTSCH

Janos MATTIS-TEUTSCH

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Janos MATTIS-TEUTSCH (1884-1959). Born in Brasov (in Romania today), Mattis-Teutsch is an important Hungarian-Romanian abstract expressionist painter. Mattis-Teutsch, whose name combines his father’s and adoptive father’s names, begins to study sculpture in Brasov, before heading out to Budapest and later on Munich. In Germany, Mattis-Teutsch has a chance to look at Kandinsky’s and Klee’s expressionist works. He moves to Paris in 1906, where he is greatly influenced by Van Gogh’s works and Gauguin’s colorful retrospective. In 1908, he permanently returns to Brasov, where he splits his time and exhibitions between Budapest and Berlin. He exhibits with ‘Der Sturm’, along with Kandinsky and Klee, and makes contacts amongst the Bauhaus school. In 1931, Mattis-Teutsch publishes ‘Art Ideology’ where he stresses the spiritual dimension of art and its harmony through geometry. After WWII, Mattis-Teutsch’s art takes a realist turn, which can be seen in the artist’s retrospective in Brasov in 1958.

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