Peter Laszlo Peri

Peter Laszlo Peri (June 13, 1899 – January 19, 1967) was an artist and sculptor.[1]

Name changes

Ladislas Weisz was born June 13, 1899 in Budapest, Hungary. Antisemitism caused his family to change their name to the more Hungarian "Péri". When he moved to Germany, he was known as Laszlo Péri. After he moved to England, he adopted the name "Peter Peri". His grandson, born in 1971, an artist, also has the name Peter Peri.

Career

Born in 1899, in Budapest into a large proletarian Jewish family Peri became politicised at an early age. In 1919, he finished an apprenticeship as a bricklayer and became a student at the workshops for proletariat fine arts in 1919. He was in contact with Kassák and the Activists. In 1917, he began his career as an actor at the MA theater school, studying with János Mácsza. As part of a theatre company he went to Prague where he heard about the fall of the Republic of Councils. He studied architecture in 1919–20 in Budapest and Berlin. He lived for a short time in Paris in 1920, in the house of a socialist baker before being forced to leave the country due to his political activities. Peri moved to Vienna, then on to Berlin in 1921, where he created his first abstract geometric reliefs. In February of 1922, he had a show with Moholy-Nagy at Der Sturm Gallery, Berlin. In 1923, his portfolio containing twelve linocuts was published by Der Sturm Verlag. His contributions to constructivism at the time were to challenge the surface of the wall by producing irregularly shaped wall reliefs and to open up new planes; namely the discovery of concrete as a potential sculptural medium, colouring it if necessary, and the appreciation of the hard contour as a visual device, as seen in his collages and linoprints, which could be used to create a visual medium hovering between the relief and architecture; whereas Moholy-Nagy's 'Glasarchitektur' achieved this using paint and canvas Péri used less conventional media.

At the Grosse Berliner Kunstausstellung in May 1923, he showed his three-piece 7x17-metre composition, which while it may also have been executed in paint on wood, had pretensions to be executed in concrete. Peri, joined the German Communist Party (KPD) in 1923. His 1924, constructivist design for a Lenin tribune for the German art exhibition in Moscow; marked the end of his investigations into the non-objective. That samw year Peri began to work for the Berlin municipal architectural office from 1924 to 1928, probably motivated by a vision to put his productivist values into action, but frustrated he quit the job in 1928. In 1928, he signed the manifesto and statutes of the German Association of Revolutionary Visual Artists [Assoziation Revolutionärer Bildener Künstler Deutschlands; ARBKD; ASSO] which like other new and militant Communist art organisations called for a reinvigoration of the idea of "proletarian culture" and suitably positive images of working-class life and culture. Member of Die Abstrakten and Rote Gruppe. In 1929, returned to representational painting and sculpture.

Peri immigrated to England in 1933, after his wife was arrested in possession of Communist propaganda. In 1934, Peri contributed "several forceful works in coloured concrete" to the AIA exhibition 'The Social Scene'. Contact with John Heartfield. In England, he lived first in Ladbroke Grove, then in Hampstead; in 1938, he moved to a studio in Camden Town where he worked until 1966. While in Hampstead, Peri joined the recently founded English section of the Artists International (later to be known as 'Artists International Association'), an association composed largely of commercial artists and designers whose declared intention was to mobilise "the international unity of artists against Imperialist War on the Soviet Union, Fascism and Colonial oppression." In July of 1938, he had solo exhibition 'London Life in Concrete' in an empty building at 36 Soho Square. In 1939, he became a British citizen and took the name "Peter Peri". In November of 1948, he solo show 'Peri's People' at the AIA Gallery. Late in the 1940s he did a series of commissions for the London County Council. In 1951, Peri produced a sculptural group Sunbathers for the Festival of Britain. Commissions from Stuart Mason, Director of Education for Leicestershire (Two Children Calling A Dog, Scraptoft, c. 1956; Atom Boy, Birstall, 1960).

When the Herbert Art Gallery & Museum opened in 1960, Peri was commissioned to "represent the life and activities [of Coventry] in modern terms and materials"; the work is known simply as The Coventry sculpture [2]

Peri joined the Quaker faith and produced a small bronze sculpture of a Quaker Meeting, much loved by the students of Woodbrooke Study Centre,[3] Birmingham, where it is now located.[4]

Peter Peri died January 19, 1967.

Major works after 1945

Works in permanent collections

Exhibitions

External links

References

  1. ↑ ODNB article by Gillian Whiteley, "Peri, Peter Laszlo (1899–1967)", Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004 , (accessed 11 Feb 2008)
  2. ↑ Coventry Gallery's Help for Local Artists, The Times, 9 March 1960
  3. ↑ Woodbrooke Quaker Centre website
  4. ↑ Quaker Meeting sculpture on Flickr (accessed 23 February 2008).
  5. 1 2 Exhibition catalogue of a memorial exhibition: sculptures and graphic work at Swiss Cottage Library, London 8–21 May 1968, with an introductory essay by John Berger. Biographical notes, List of major works carried out [1946–1965] and of exhibitions and catalogue by P.H. Hulton and extracts from his writings and others writings about him. 15 pages.
  6. ↑ Longslade Community College uses Peter Peri's sculpture as its logo (accessed 23 February 2008).
  7. ↑ Illustration of Peter Peri's sculpture at University of Exeter: "Man of the World". (Accessed 24 February 2008)
  8. ↑ The Tate currently lists:"Mr Collins from the A.R.P." 1940 Pigmented concrete object: 675 x 680 x 400 mm relief. Purchased 1988 (on display at the Tate Modern) and two other works at Tale Catalogue but not the bronze horse listed in the 1967 exhibition catalogue.
  9. ↑ Peri's "Coventry Sculpture" is referred to as a masterpiece on the Museum's website. (accessed 24 February 2008).
  10. ↑ Hungarian National Gallery website. (accessed 24 February 2008)
  11. ↑ Ernst Museum Budapest website (accessed 24 February 2008).
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