Béla BIRKAS (1929-1973). "Flying omnies". Oil on canvas (holes, dents) Height : 200 cm - Width : 200 cm Provenance: Artist's studio Exhibition: Institut Hongrois de Paris, Paris, "Béla Birkàs. Retrospective", October 25 - November 7, 2000. Note: Towards the end of his life, Béla Birkas seems to have found a convergence between his initial scientific quest (biology) and his love of art. The meteoric development of aeronautics and the prospect of an ever-expanding world had a considerable impact on the artist. It was Stanley Kubrick's 1968 film "2001: A Space Odyssey" in particular that inspired Béla Birkàs. Already drawn to the natural sciences, he began painting cosmic pictures in the late 1960s. Nourished by the scientific discoveries of the time, the artist created his own surrealist repertoire: in his works from this period, of which "Flying Omnies" is the largest-format example, we find flying saucers, planets and imaginary celestial bodies floating in pictorial space. This new expressive form reveals not only a profound reflection on man's place in a rapidly expanding world, but also a strong stylistic contamination with other artists of the time. Between the cafés Le Dôme and La Coupole in Montparnasse, Béla Birkas's table rubbed shoulders with Cardenas, Prinner and Giacometti, among others.