Peter Peri (1899 - 1967)
From the beginning of Berger's essay, "Peter Peri":
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Ladislas Weisz was born June 13, 1899 in Budapest, Hungary. Antisemitism caused his family to change their name to the more Hungarian "Péri". When he moved to Germany, he was known as Laszlo Péri. After he moved to England, he adopted the name "Peter Peri". His grandson, born in 1971, an artist, also has the name Peter Peri.
Career
In Berlin, he joined the Der Sturm group of artists and in 1922, exhibited Constructivist sculpture in a joint show with Laszlo Moholy-Nagy. He worked in an architectural office from 1924 to 1927, with a view to qualifying as an architect. He returned to sculpture in 1928, but in a realist style.
In 1935, he and his wife moved to Hampstead in London. In 1939, he became a British citizen and took the name "Peter Peri". He made etchings and continued to work in sculpture, producing groups of small figures, usually engaged in co-operative ventures. Many public buildings were adorned with his work. When the Herbert Art Gallery & Museum opened in 1960, Peri was commissioned to "represent the life and activities [of Coventry] in modern terms and materials"; the work is known simply as The Coventry sculpture [2]
Peri joined the Quaker faith and produced a small bronze sculpture of a Quaker Meeting, much loved by the students of Woodbrooke Study Centre [3], Birmingham, where it is now located [4].
He died January 19, 1967.
[From Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Laszlo_Peri]
I knew about Peter Peri from 1947 onwards. At that time he lived in Hampstead and I used to pass his garden where he displayed his sculptures. I was an art student just out of the Army. The sculptures impressed me not so much because of their quality -- at that time many other things interested me more than art -- but because of their strangeness. They were foreign looking. I remember arguing with my friends about them. They said they were crude and coarse. I defended them because I sensed that they were the work of somebody totally different from us.
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Ladislas Weisz was born June 13, 1899 in Budapest, Hungary. Antisemitism caused his family to change their name to the more Hungarian "Péri". When he moved to Germany, he was known as Laszlo Péri. After he moved to England, he adopted the name "Peter Peri". His grandson, born in 1971, an artist, also has the name Peter Peri.
Career
In Berlin, he joined the Der Sturm group of artists and in 1922, exhibited Constructivist sculpture in a joint show with Laszlo Moholy-Nagy. He worked in an architectural office from 1924 to 1927, with a view to qualifying as an architect. He returned to sculpture in 1928, but in a realist style.
In 1935, he and his wife moved to Hampstead in London. In 1939, he became a British citizen and took the name "Peter Peri". He made etchings and continued to work in sculpture, producing groups of small figures, usually engaged in co-operative ventures. Many public buildings were adorned with his work. When the Herbert Art Gallery & Museum opened in 1960, Peri was commissioned to "represent the life and activities [of Coventry] in modern terms and materials"; the work is known simply as The Coventry sculpture [2]
Peri joined the Quaker faith and produced a small bronze sculpture of a Quaker Meeting, much loved by the students of Woodbrooke Study Centre [3], Birmingham, where it is now located [4].
He died January 19, 1967.
[From Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Laszlo_Peri]
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