Ben Uri Research Unit

Born: 1895 Budapest, Austria-Hungary (now Hungary)

Died: 1983 London, England

Year of Migration to the UK: 1937

Biography

Painter Akos Zsótér was born on 5 September 1895 in Budapest, Austro-Hungarian Empire (now Hungary). He pursued his ambition to become a renowned painter by enrolling at the Charlottenburg Art School in Berlin aged 17, where he studied under Alfred Kampf (Hitler's favourite painter). Zsótér remained there until the outbreak of the First World War, during which he served as an officer in the Hungarian Army. He was captured in 1916 while fighting on the Russian Front and was interned as a prisoner of war in Siberia (first in Irkutsk and later, Petrograd (formerly St Petersburg). Upon his release, he attended the Imperial Academy of Arts in Petrograd before returning to Budapest in 1922.

In the mid-1920s, Zsótér left Hungary and travelled through Europe, living in Germany, Holland, and Paris, before arriving in London in 1937, where he remained until his death. During his travels, he befriended important artists such as the Jewish émigré Chaim Soutine and the French fauvist, Maurice de Vlaminck. In the UK, Zsótér established himself as a portrait painter and maintained a studio in west London.

Zsótér's painting style exhibits a command of portraiture, at times classical and realist, while his textured brushstrokes and vibrant yet subdued colours can be linked to Post-Impressionism and the expressive brushwork and attention to the subtleties of human emotion are reminiscent of Expressionism. His still lifes and urban landscapes are particularly expressive, even at times suggesting the rich palette of Fauvism. Two notable sitters were actress Merle Oberon, who sat for him in the early 1940s, and Cardinal Arthur Hinsley. Kenneth Clark, head of the War Artists’ Advisory Committee and Director of the National Gallery during the Second World War, was Zsótér's close friend and client. Despite Clark’s support, Zsótér's applications to the War Artists’ Advisory Committee were denied three times in 1941. Zsótér regularly exhibited with the Society of Portrait Painters and was an active member of the Chelsea Art Society, where he was made Vice President.

Zsótér exhibited consistently throughout his life. He exhibited with fellow Hungarian sculptor, émigré Frank Kovacs, holding a joint exhibition in 1938 at the White Gallery in London. Zsótér was also part of group exhibitions such as those mounted by the United Society of Artists and he showed with the London Group during their fourth wartime exhibition in 1942. He also showed at the annual summer exhibition at the Royal Academy of Arts (RA), London. A journalist reviewing his solo exhibition later at the Pentad Gallery in Kensington in 1972 praised his technique and his use of vibrant colours and broad strokes (Kensington News and West London Times, p. 192). In 1983, his work was included in Hommage à la Terre Natale, an exhibition of Hungarian-born artists living abroad.

Akos Zsótér died in London, England in 1983 at the age of 88. Several posthumous exhibitions ensued, including a two-person show, Charlotte Mensforth and Akos Zsótér held at the Medici Galleries, London in the year of his death (1983). Akos Zsótér's works are not currently held in UK public collections. In 2009, at a Christie’s auction in South Kensington, his son Ivan bid on and purchased Reflected Beauty, a 1949 oil portrait by his father of his mother, Klara, in a deep purple gown. This portrait held particular significance to Ivan as it captured the memory of his late mother, who died in 1989. Akos Zsótér's work can also be found in the private collection of family friend and Worcestershire-based artist, Malcolm Victory.

Related books

Robert Waterhouse, Their Safe Haven: Hungarian artists in Britain from the 1930s (Manchester: Baquis Press 2018), p.190-191
No author, 'Art Exhibitions', The Times, 20 July 1938, p. 12

Related organisations

Chelsea Art Society (Vice President)

Selected exhibitions

Charlotte Mensforth and Akos Zsótér (dual exhibition), Medici Galleries, London (1983)
Tisztelet a szülőföldnek/Homage to the motherland (group show), Hall of Art, Budapest (1983)
Aymar de Lezardiere: Wash Drawings and Akos Zsótér: Oils (dual exhibition), Archer Gallery, London (1970)
Royal Academy Summer Exhibition, Royal Academy of Arts, London (1965)
Akos Zsótér (solo xxhibition), Pentad Gallery, London (1972)
Annual Exhibition of the United Society of Artists, Mall Galleries, London (1963, 1969, 1978)
Chelsea Art Society Exhibition, Chenil Galleries, London (1955)
Society of Portrait Painters Annual Exhibition, Suffolk Street, London (1944)
Fourth War-Time exhibition/The London Group, Leger Galleries, London (1942)
Paintings by Zsoter and Portraits in Bronze by Frank Kovacs, The White Gallery, London (1938)
Annual Exhibition, Ben Uri Art Gallery (1972)

Ben Uri archive

Consult items in the Ben Uri archive related to [Akos Zsótér]

Ben Uri Research Unit

for the study and digital recording of the Jewish, Refugee and wide Immigrant contribution to British visual culture since 1900.

Akos Zsótér artist