Emaljfris

Endre Nemes’s paintings belonged to the Central European Avant-Gardes, and he was a both prominent and controversial artist on the post-war Swedish art scene.

Enamels were something of a speciality for Nemes and he did several major enamel works for public environments. This painting is from a period in which he was exploring abstract visual art, but he is primarily known for his figurative imagery, which during the latter part of his art consisted of clearly collage-like compositions.

Nemes was of Central European and Jewish descent. He was born in 1909 in Hungary. His family name was actually Nágel, but early in his career, he adopted the artist name Nemes, which is Hungarian for “nobility” or “noble”. He received his artistic education at the Prague Art Academy, but fled Prague in the wake of Nazism in 1938. He came to Sweden in 1940 and remained here until his death in 1985.

Nemes made an early mark on the post-war Swedish art scene. From 1947 to 1955, he was the director of the Valand School of Fine Arts in Gothenburg and thus influenced a whole generation of west-coast artists. His artistic focus meant a break with the colouristically expressive tradition that had until then been dominant in the art city of Gothenburg, which made Nemes unpopular in parts of the city’s art circles.

“Without my painting, I cannot live. It is the only fragile means of expression that I possess.”

Nemes once wrote. How do you interpret the expression in the enamel frieze?