Constant Detré
| Constant Detré | |
|---|---|
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Constant Detré
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| Born |
Szilárd Eduard Diettmann 2 January 1891 Paris, France |
| Died | 10 April 1945 (aged 54) Paris, France |
| Nationality | Hungarian, French |
| Known for | Painting |
| Movement | Post-Impressionism, Art Nouveau, School of Paris |
Constant Detré (Szilárd Eduard Diettmann) was born in Budapest (then a part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire) on 2 January 1891, and died 10 April 1945 in Garnat-sur-Engièvre a village of central France (département of Allier). He was an artist who left his native Hungary for good in rather obscure circumstances following the repression against the Béla Kun government of 1919. He settled in Paris where he mixed from 1920 to 1940 with representatives of the School of Paris and other Montparnasse artists, several of whom were Central European émigrés like himself, such as Pascin, a good friend of his.
For lack of extensive data, the artist’s biography is difficult to piece together. It has been ascertained with some degree of confidence that his forebears were all in varying degrees artists from Central Europe. His great-grandfather Clémens Dittmann was a sculptor who moved from Vienna to Budapest early during the 19th century, where he worked on several important buildings. His grandfather Eduard Diettmann (Dittmann) was a sculptor who married a Hungarian woman. Constant Detré's father, Eduard Diettmann, a steam engine mechanic, died too early to make a name for himself as an artist.
Detré studied painting in Munich with one of the greatest Hungarian representatives of 19th century Naturalism and Realism, the Hungarian artist Simon Hollósy, who organized study sessions in the Carpathian Mountains for his students at the private painting school he had founded in the Bavarian capital in 1886.
Detré went to Paris in 1914, before returning to Hungary, but would leave shortly thereafter, perhaps as a result of the brutal anti-communist repression launched by the Miklós Horthy regime. (A member of Detré's future wife's family, it was rumored, served as an "artistic advisor" in the government of Béla Kun) but if so, it was not by official decree. In 1919 Detré returned to Munich and became the producer of a pantomime company. He moved to Paris in time for the 1925 Exposition Internationale des Arts Décoratifs et Industriels Modernes (International Exposition of Modern Decorative and Industrial Arts). He became an acquaintance of Henri Matisse, Raoul Dufy, Tsuguharu Foujita, Moïse Kisling, Kiki de Montparnasse (who modeled for him on several occasions) and a close friend of Pascin.
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