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Dezső Bokros Birman was an artist who reacted sensitively to the world around him. During his studies he tried to learn everything there was to know about sculpture, but when he realized that concise modelling was best suited to his content, he did not hesitate to relinquish all that was unnecessary. His method of expression and his style are not the same in all his works. At the beginning of his career he used quiet, smooth forms, reminiscent of Egyptian sculpture. But then "... the world turned upside down," and when the First World War broke out, he began to see things differently. He wrote, "Just as the silently soaring rocket tears away the darkness of the starless night, so the bloody horrors tore away from me the garments of yesterday. My entire past life fell into nothing. Upbringing, education, everything I had learnt in Pest and Paris. Even Michelangelo disappeared from my life."
Between the two world wars, his passionate, expressive art rebelled against the official cultural policy. Bokros Birman readily joined the Group of Socialist Artists. At the end of this period he sculptured "Wounded Soldier", the unknown victim of mad, inhuman devastation. Leaning on his sword as a crutch, the veteran walks on shaky legs. The right sleeve of his tunic hangs limply by his body, empty. The pitiful figure is the ironic and merciless expression of the artist's angry emotion.
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