Endre Bőszin was born in Pilis, Hungary in 1923 and attended evening classes at the Alkotás Művészház before enrolling at the School of Applied Arts, Budapest. In 1956, after the Soviet invasion of Hungary, Boszin and his wife Sarolta fled to Scotland and eventually settled in London, where he became the director of the Chiltern Art Gallery and established the neo-expressionist group, Taurus Artists. In 1966 he resettled in Toronto, Canada, where he continued to be a prolific painter and sculptor and served as President of the Sculpture Society of Canada.
Painter and sculptor Endre Bőszin was born the son of merchant Gyula Bőszin and Mária Csontos, in Pilis, Hungary in 1923. Despite having few opportunities to see fine art, he was interested in drawing from an early age and took up oil painting aged 17. In the early 1940s, he moved to Budapest for better work opportunities, while attending evening classes at the Alkotás Művészház (Creation Artists' House), a free art school and gallery. There, he studied with Jenő Gadányi (1896-1960), a principal figure of Hungarian modernist painting, who introduced Boszin to the avant-garde movement and to leading critics of the time. Bőszin eventually took further art studies at the School of Applied Arts, Budapest; however, he was unable to graduate due to the turbulent last months of the Second World War. The Soviet occupation posed a threat to intellectuals who remained in the capital, hence Boszin and his circle had to flee to the countryside in 1945–46. By the end of 1946, he returned to Budapest, established a small cooperative artists' studio, Bagolyvár (Owl Castle), and was accepted as a member of the Hungarian Artists' Association. This meant financial support from the government as well as opportunities to exhibit widely; however, with the introduction of a strict socialist regime in 1948, abstract and ‘self-serving modernist’ art was banned and Bőszin had to focus on applied arts in the service of Stalinism. Nevertheless, he continued privately to create sketches and paintings in a cubist style.
Following the failed Hungarian uprising against the Soviet regime in 1956, Bőszin and his wife Sarolta swiftly fled to Edinburgh, Scotland by way of Austria in November. Once in Scotland, he was aided by fellow Serbian-Hungarian artist, Željko Kujundžić who organised a solo show of Boszin's works, drawn on the run, at the Edinburgh Art Centre in 1957. Despite both solo and group exhibitions and encouraging press reviews, Boszin failed to establish himself in Scotland and relocated to London with his family in early 1958. In the capital he was inspired by neo-expressionism, particularly by the COBRA group, and amalgamated these varied influences into a constructive-expressionist style, working with loose brushstrokes and his signature restricted palette of dark tones. The following year, Boszin had his first major exhibition in London at the Woodstock Gallery, which caught the attention of Hungarian émigré art dealer Gustav T. Siden, who appointed him director of his Marylebone gallery. In 1959 Boszin's works were displayed, alongside those of Kujundzic's, at the Chiltern Gallery, where Boszin was soon appointed as director. In 1961 Boszin founded the neo-expressionist group ‘Taurus Artists’, a loose international association of about 40 artists, bound together by common exhibitions. The group's first show was held at the Chiltern Gallery that year. In 1961 Boszin had his second show at the Chiltern, this time with English painter Bruce Clark, his work shifting from geometric to abstract, as an unnamed reviewer from Apollo observed: '[...] in their technique, the paintings are extremely close to expressionism, although here the expressionism becomes almost an understatement'. He also commented on the ‘dark and heavy tones’ of the colours (as cited in Botar 2004, p. 114).
Boszin became a naturalised British citizen in 1963. His final show in Britain was held in 1966 at the Douglas and Foulis Art Gallery in Edinburgh before he moved to Toronto, Canada at the invitation of his Hungarian friend, Gyula (Julius) Marosán and other members of Taurus Artists, who founded the progressive Minotaur Gallery there in 1963. This new artistic environment had a significant influence on his work, in both his exploration of bronze and aluminium sculpture and changes in his painting style, moving towards greater geometric abstraction. Throughout the 1970s, he was President of the Sculpture Society of Canada. In 1973, he exhibited examples of his sculptural works in a group show, Five Sculptors from Toronto at Pennel Gallery and Gallery Schonberger. A review in the Toronto Citizen observed that: 'Boszin is showing cast aluminum abstractions with a most unusual and appropriate use of added colour. His forms are very strong and massive, and are greatly enhanced by the very vigorous and free use of colors' (Thom 1972, p. 16). Endre Boszin died in Toronto, Canada on 24 March 2006. His work is represented in the UK public domain in the British Museum collection.
Consult items in the Ben Uri archive related to [Endre Boszin]
Publications related to [Endre Boszin] in the Ben Uri Library