However, the Wanted poster in Falk Miksa Street is not directed at robbers and murders but at paintings. The person behind the idea is Gergely Barki, an art historian, who some years ago first published a study under the same title in Art Magazine, and since this attracted a following, a series was launched in the periodical and its homepage. Barki has already proved himself to be the most efficient hunter of paintings.  In recent years he has discovered and identified several unknown or long sought after works, the market value of which can be put at tens of millions (the latest "catch" was reported by our magazine: Heti Válasz,  4 June 2009). Now he has managed to persuade the two great rival auction houses to provide venues for this unorthodox initiative to facilitate the Nyolcak centenary exhibition to be organised within the framework of the Pécs European Capital of Culture programme.    

Noise, scandal, enthusiasm

The idea is that with the help of the large-scale photos in the domestic centres of art trade, researchers will have a good chance of finding the sought works of art. At the same time, the over one hundred reproductions of paintings and graphics on display will be memorable for the public as it will offer a special selection from the beginnings of the Hungarian Avant-garde. The exhibits include some principle works, such as Ödön Márffy's Three Female Nudes and Róbert Berény's Silhouette composition, and also some prints that were only published in some contemporaneous issues of Nyugat. Some of the sought works of art went missing from the public domain a decade ago, while others - now exhibited as colour prints - changed hands in the last two decades at some auction or other and now it is not known where they are.

But what is all the fuss about? None of these works made it into museums and, they all, like underground streams, appear and disappear. There are hundreds of other excellent, latent works apart from the ones announced as wanted. The truth of the matter is that the Nyolcak group occupies a prominent place in Hungarian art history as the first Hungarian company of artists to be termed Avant-garde, which immediately smoothly fit into the modern artistic trends of Europe. Most of its members studied in Paris and fell in love with Fauvism, the most unorthodox trend of the time, and went on to be part of and indeed shape the "Hungarian wild ones", a trend that never grew into a movement. They established their group of eight in the late 1910s to stage their exhibition titled New Pictures to the Hungarian public on 30 December 1909. It made a noise, a scandal and aroused enthusiasm all at the same time: Dezső Czigány's self-portrait was mostly referred to as a "green-haired monster". Some wrote about Ödön Márffy that "his landscapes were the greatest insult that had ever been made against art", while according to another critic "he brought a wonderful harmony of colour back with him from Italy".    

At the centre of a cultural struggle

The Nyolcak only took on their well known name at their second exhibition, in 1911, and up to this point they frequently changed their painting style. Having further developed wild Fauvism under the influence of Cézanne, they started to paint more structured and less lively compositions - as did the French artists - however, the scandal created around them in the press maintained its momentum. The Nyolcak found themselves in the midst of the cultural struggle that was on-going at the time: a polarization of views with Endre Ady and the Nyolcak at one end, and Magyar Figyelő [Hungarian Observer] founded by István Tisza and the daily papers castigating "ultra-modern". While in between two tenures in office as Prime Minister, Tisza, who at the time was addressing artistic issues, wrote: "We are truly standing on the threshold of a new era. The Nyolcak exhibition has created a new period. Not because it is the crowning of all those tragicomical, terrible things which have flooded the market under the pretext of art, torturing the cultured people of our capital seat, but because now it is not the painter alone who extends his eager arms to a pious public, seeking an ally and finding such in poetry and music (...) [The new era is truly marked by the] concerts, public readings and debates in the kiosks in Erzsébet Square..."   

Indeed, it was regarded as a novelty that in the Nemzeti Szalon building the authors of Nyugat held public readings among the paintings of the Nyolcak,  Ady poems were read by Frida Gombaszögi, and a joint concert was given by Béla Bartók, Zoltán Kodály and Leó Weiner. The reformer of the period's various artistic branches - from Ady through the Nyolcak to Bartók - were driven to the same camp by their desire for renewal in opposition to academism.

Found

The Nyolcak group served as a perfect catalyst between literature and music. As a result of being based both in Hungary and abroad, they represented the new French spirit and visual culture was the best means to bring fresh news of the Parisian art world to Hungary. Most of them had become acquainted in the French capital and it was there that they formed a friendship with Endre Ady. Ödön Márffy had also met Bartók in Paris and some years later he introduced the composer and the poet to each other at the exhibition where Róbert Berény's wonderful portrait of Bartók was displayed. Berény - like many of the Nyolcak - was adept at music. He played the violin and the piano and his abilities qualified him to write critiques of concerts in Nyugat. He not only played music but wrote compositions, one of which, for a string quartet, was performed in Berlin. In his memoirs violinist Ivor Kármán commented: "The November Gruppe performed Berény's piece at the second musical event it organised itself in 1922. It was a full house, with some 1,000-1,200 people, and I must add that it enjoyed an unbelievable degree of success and we were called back about ten times".

Thanks to the research carried out by Gergely Barki, some months ago the sheet music of the first movement was found and the sensational Hungarian premiere of the close to twenty minutes long composition, performed by the Auer Quartet, was organised as part of the Wanted exhibition. What is more, one of the sought paintings turned up in time for the opening: A Fauvist still-life by Béla Czóbel, which was displayed in the Judit Virág Gallery next to the black-and-white photographic reproduction made of it. The organisers have reason to hope that by the end of the four-week exhibition they will be able to mount new paintings on the walls alongside the copies.