The enigmatic women of Endre Roder have been beguiling art collectors across the world for 30 years. Now they have arrived at the Catto Gallery for the first time. Roder is a substantial painter with an international reputation, and his works are instantly recognisable. Female subjects dominate his world. Roder's women are demure yet somehow self-involved. Their clothes are distinctive – exotic and bursting with colour. And the artist paints them with a flattened perspective that recalls some of his key influences – Balthus, Picasso, Modigliani and not least the German expressionist Ernst Ludwig Kirchner, whose pioneering work shocked Germany in the early 20th century.
In truth, Roder’s work is warmer in tone than Kirchner's. He spent his childhood in a female-dominated household so this may have influenced his painting style. Roder was born in Budapest in 1933, but moved to Malta aged two. As a teen, he developed his talent for draughtsmanship at the Malta School of Arts. He left for the UK in 1949, and continued his studies at Southsea, Portsmouth and the Sheffield College of Art. He became a full time painter in 1988.
