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Hantai [Hantaï], Simon
(b Bia, nr Budapest, 8 Dec 1922). Hungarian painter, active in France. He began his studies at the Hungarian Academy of Fine Arts, Budapest, in 1941 under Vilmos Aba-Novák (1894–1941) and Béla Kontuly (1904–83). At this time he started to experiment with various techniques, including washing out figures from a basic colour with a brush dipped in water, and scratching out outlines in thick, almost dry paint with a pointed instrument. This anticipated his later methods of production, influenced by Max Ernst. In 1947 he had an exhibition of selected works at the Budapest Forum Salon. His painting On the Balcony (1947–8; Pécs, Mod. Hung. Mus.) has a hallucinatory quality, which represents the transition to his Surrealist works of the 1950s. In 1948 Hantai visited Italy and in 1949 he settled permanently in Paris. At the end of 1952 he became acquainted with André Breton, who wrote the preface to the catalogue of Hantai’s first French exhibition, held in 1953 at the Galerie l’Etoile Scellée, Paris. During this period he experimented with such techniques as frottage, collage, découpage, Tachism and pliage. In 1953–4 he became a member of the Surrealist group. His works typically evoked a nightmarish fantasy world in animated, forceful colours, filled with luxuriant organic forms, often arranged in vortices. The human figure, often with an animal head, took on a magical symbolic role.
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