'Londoners' 1940s Etchings - Peter László Péri
'Londoners' 1940s Etchings - Peter László Péri
Original 3-part etching from Péri’s 'Londoners’ series, 1940s.
Viewings welcome - please contact Cal to arrange an appointment.
IN COLLABORATION WITH THE PETER LÁZLÓ PÉRI ESTATE
About the artwork
Three etchings from Péri’s observations of people on the streets of London. These small prints were intended to be sold in groups as folding booklets, like postcards. The top etching is closely reminiscent of Péri’s “Class System” which is in the Tate collection.
“In Class System 1946 (Tate P14973) Peri used close observation of social difference to make a political point about reconstruction and inequality after the end of the Second World War. On the left a man dressed in a suit and hat stands on the pavement, his hand on his hip, leaning on his umbrella. On the right the same pose is adopted by a man standing in the road, wearing a flat cap, shirt-sleeves and heavy boots, but he leans on a pneumatic drill. The figures are clearly identified as upper class and working class by their clothing, and the composition juxtaposes the idleness of the man standing on the pavement with the active manual labourer ready to begin work, implying their relative contribution to the reconstruction of Britain in the aftermath of the Second World War.”
Artist: Peter László Péri
Date: 1940s
Framed size: 22 x 42cm
Mounting: Raised-float mounted using acid-free Japanese wheat-starch paste and Japanese paper
Framing: Museum-grade maple frame with contrasting spline and 99% UV-resistant glass
Delivery: Collect from the shop or contact Cal to arrange specialist art handlers.
About the artist
Peter László Péri (1899 – 1967) was a Hungarian artist and sculptor renowned for his constructivist artworks in the 1920s. He was involved in the Hungarian avant-garde from an early age, joining Janos Macza’s innovative theatre workshop in 1917. After moving to and being expelled from Paris for sedition, he settled in Berlin, becoming close with a group of exiled left-wing Hungarian avant-garde artists. An émigré to England in 1933 from Nazi-occupied Germany, Péri worked more figuratively after the war.
Two of his sculptural relief works are on display at Tate Britain in the Historic and Modern British Art section 1920-1940, and several of his works are in MoMA. His long-lost Festival of Britain sculpture 'The Sunbathers' was recently restored and installed at Waterloo Station. A new exhibition celebrating Péri's work from the period after he emigrated has just opened in Berlin at Kunsthaus Dahlem. The collection that we have for sale is largely from this period of his life.
