Alfréd Réth was a Hungarian artist born in Budapest. He became a member of the early Cubist movement and devoted his life to the study of harmony of forms and materials. He travelled to Paris for the first time in 1905 and was influenced by Hindu art, which drove him towards total abstraction. He explored the harmony between a straight and curved line in the 1910s. Following exhibitions with avant-garde artists such as Léger, Metzinger, Kandinsky and Delaunay, he became a member of Abstraction Création in 1932. The organization included some of the most influential abstract artists of the European avant-garde and they became highly important figures of early modernism. As seen in the present work, “Composition avec matiéres et encre de Chine”, Réth used different materials to enhance the composition. It was said of Alfréd Réth at this time: “Réth has for a long time devoted himself to the study of materials... No one has investigated the possibilities of new techniques more thoroughly”.

Alfred Reth was born in Budapest in 1884. He trained as a painter with the Hungarian impressionist László Mednyánszky, where he developed an interest for Buddhism and oriental art. From 1903 onwards he was a member of the artists' colony of Nagybánya, two years later he moved to Paris. Here he became acquainted with the works by Cézanne and joined the Cubists in 1907. He exhibited at the Salon des Indépendants, alongside artists such as Matisse, Braque and Léger. As an artist of the École de Paris, Reth also showed his works abroad. After the First World War, he was one of the first artists who devoted himself to abstraction. Today some of his works are held in prestigious collections such as the Centre Georges Pompidou in Paris or the National Gallery of Hungary.