Alfred Reth

Alfred Reth (Budapest 1884 – Paris 1966)

Alfred Reth was born in 1884 in Budapest into a middle-class Jewish family. He began taking painting classes at the Budapest Academy of Fine Arts under the painter Karoly Ferenczy, before leaving for a year-long trip to Italy.
He arrived in Paris in 1904 and enrolled at the Academy of Jacques Émile Blanche, then spent a few months in Italy studying at the Academy of Fine Arts in Florence. Upon his return to Paris in 1907, he met the ethnologist and Buddhist Suzanne Karpelès, who introduced him to mystical thought, which he began to incorporate into his work. In 1913, the artist exhibited 80 Cubist works in Berlin to represent contemporary French art. Alfred Reth enlisted in the French army in 1914. From 1931 to 1936, he was a member of the “Abstration – Création” group, which aimed to promote abstract art, alongside artists such as Jean Arp, Auguste Herbin, and Georges Valmier. In 1946, he participated in the “Réalités Nouvelles” Salon. Alfred Reth died in Paris on September 15, 1966, upon his return from an exhibition in Chicago.


Alfred Reth was a painter of Hungarian origin associated with the School of Paris. Early in his career, he painted portraits, still lifes, and landscapes in a Cubist style, alternating between browns and bright colors. His painting evolved toward almost total abstraction beginning in the 1920s.

Alfred Reth exhibited at the Salon d’Automne (1910, 1934, 1940), the Salon des Indépendants (1911, 1912), and the Salon des Tuileries (1925, 1926). Several galleries and museums across Europe exhibited his work: in France, in Paris (Galerie Henri, B. Weill, Denise René, the Institut, and the Petit Palais), Lyon (Galerie Folklore and the Musée Saint-Pierre), Saint-Étienne (Museum of Art and Industry, Saint-Étienne Museum), Saint-Tropez (Galerie du Port); in London, Berlin, Budapest, Geneva, Copenhagen, Stockholm, Warsaw, Kraków, and Yugoslavia.