The Eight (Nyolcak)

The Eight (Nyolcak) was an avant-garde art movement of Hungarian painters active mostly in Budapest from 1909 to 1918.

The members of the Eight Róbert Berény, Dezső Czigány, Béla Czóbel, Károly Kernstok, Ödön Márffy, Dezső Orbán, Bertalan Pór, Lajos Tihanyi were primarily inspired by Matisse and the fauvism and Cézanne’s art. They opened their first exhibition on December 30, 1909, at the Könyves Kálmán Salon (Budapest), under the title New Pictures. Their second exhibition – already entitled The Eight – opened in April 1911 in the National Salon. While the Eight as a group had only three exhibitions, their activity was of immense significance, with an influence that went far beyond the visual arts. The exhibitions were accompanied by series of symposia, and by very fine events involving new Hungarian literature and contemporary music. With the hindsight of a century, we can say the greatest inventors of the various fields of Hungarian culture met in 1911. Ödön Márffy was proud of this intellectual kinship throughout his life. A year before his death he said: “It fills me with happiness to know that my youth coincided with that memorable period in intellectual development, when not only in Europe but also in Hungary, those seeking new, better things in literature, music, painting, science, politics and social life were carried by vibrant, seething currents. It can’t have been by chance that Endre Ady broke in with his new songs at the time when Béla Bartók came with his new chords, when progressive intellectuals gathered round reviews like “Nyugat” (Occident) and “XX. Század” (20th century), when Nyolcak (the Eight), a group that sought new ways appeared (…)”

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