Sigismond Kolos-Vary

Sigismond Kolozsvári, known as Kolos-Vary, was born on May 19, 1899 in Bánffy-Hunyad, Hungary. From 1918 to 1925, he studied at the School of Decorative Arts in Budapest. The following year, he made a study trip to Italy, where he discovered the Italian masters, Paolo Uccello, who influenced his debut.

In 1926, after a trip to Switzerland, Kolos Vary moved to Paris, then visited Spain. He meets the poet Pierre Guéguen, a friend of Le Corbusier, who preface his exhibitions at the Galerie de Madame Povolozky, model of Modigliani. It is in this gallery that Kolos-Vary sells his first paintings and meets Jacques Lipchitz, Andre Lhote, André Salmon and Jean Cassou.

In 1941, arrested in Paris by agents of the gestapo, Kolos-Vary was interned in 1941 at the camp of gurs for two years and made among other things a sketchbook for a girl (preserved in the contemporary Jewish documentation center). He escaped in 1943 and managed to reach Switzerland. He stayed there until 1946, then returned to Paris. He is naturalized in 1955.

Until 1954, the paintings of Kolos-Vary are marked by expressionism. Between 1950 and 1954, it goes through a transitional period that evolves towards an abstract language. From 1977, Sigismund Kolos-Vary installs his workshop in Boulogne-Billancourt. He died in Switzerland in 1983 in La Chaux-de-Fonds.