Gyergyádesz László, ifj.: Kecskemét és a magyar zsidó képzőművészet a 20. század első felében (Kecskemét, 2014)

Jegyzetek

the nation - played an essential part in the assimilation of Jews in Hungary in the end of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th century Marcell Nemes - who similarly to Lajos Ernst or other contemporary patrons of the arts of Jewish origin wished for public appreciation (even with titles) - with the creation and improvement of his collection practised serious patronage activities until the end of his life.” So it could happen that the marchand-amateur - who got the title of nobility with the name “Jánoshalmi” on the 15th June 1910 - during the following year donated altogether 80 works of art in two steps to the town of Kecskemét. In his letter written on the 20th May 1911, he firstly made the donation of 79 paintings in order to “place them in the municipal museum later established by the town”. Two days later he added the altar-piece titled Baptism of Domenico Tintoretto so as to be put on one of the altars of the big Catholic Church. (It vanished during the Second World War.) According to his intensions he wanted to serve the spread of art life and popularize education outside the capital with the founding of the art gallery: “the first step of this decentralization is the foundation of museums in the countryside... via the artworks accumulated in them they can constantly direct and improve the taste of the public.” The committee of the town accepted the donation at its monthly general meeting on the 31st May 1911 and they awarded Marcell Nemes honorary citizenship of Kecskemét without any contradiction.

The fine art collection of the museum of Kecskemét established in 1898 had been improved the least of all so the donation of Nemes was truly a deed of real importance in the history of the institution. The contribution included only two foreign works, the above mentioned altar-piece of Domenico Tintoretto and a Study of Horses - also vanished - of the Czech baroque painter Jan Kupetzky. The 19th century Hungarian painting was represented for instance by the works of Jakab Marastoni, József Molnár, Károly Lotz, Bertalan Székely and Mihály Munkácsy. Nemes, the great supporter of contemporary Hungarian art donated works of masters mainly from the beginning of the century to the gallery of Kecskemét. “The heterogeneous content of the collection is instructive: besides the great names of modern Hungarian painting we come across young ambitious artists as well as the works of ordinary and kitsch painters [...] ...Initially Nemes constantly collected in addition to modern painters the works of popular artists, thus the progressive painters were accompanied by artists of lower quality”

Nearly all the contemporary schools and groups were represented: Károly Ferenczy Oszkár Glatz, András Mikola and János Thorma of Nagybánya; János Ödön Lechner and Lajos Zombory of the Szolnok art colony; Endre Frecskay and count István Zichy of Gödöllő; Ödön Márffy and Károly Kernstok of the Eight. Artists not associated with any schools or trends were represented by Lajos Gulácsy, József Rippl-Rónai and János Vaszary.

In the donation of Marcell Nemes - besides the above mentioned artworks -we can obviously find the works of the prominent representatives of Hungarian Jewish painting which constitutes one quarter of the collection. Firstly, let us briefly discuss the less known works out of them, artists who are directly behind the first-class painters. One of them, for example, is Gyula Basch (1851-1928) and another is his son Andor Basch (1885-1944). The father chiefly was a portrait-painter and his experiences in this field can be seen on his Head of Christ (Plate 2). The here exhibited early still life (Plate 3) of his son of tragic fate (he committed suicide after the German occupation of Hungary although he confessed himself a Christian) was painted directly after he had completed his studies at the Julian Academy (1904-1909). It can be well observed that Cézanne had an influence on his work who “also painted overlooking still lifes for the sake of painting experiments: table laid with white with a fruit-dish of apples and pears on it together with other tableware all looked from a view from above. He was copied Europe-wide, in Hungary for instance... by A. Basch”. - written by the famous art historian, Károly Lyka. Miksa Bruck was (1863-1920) ’’not only a painter, but a director as well. He was employed not at a very profitable bank, but at such an institute whose aim was to provide Hungarian painters with more and more patrons and money This institution was called the Hungarian Art Dealers’ Association.” Besides his vigorous activity in the artistic public life (among others he was a member of the National Hungarian Fine Art Association and also founding and directorate member of the National Saloon) he was mainly considered to be an interior painter however his naturalistic landscapes (Plate 5) were also widely known. The latter post of Bruck can be interesting considering the fact that Marcell Nemes bought more than 40 pictures at his exhibitions organized at the National Saloon between 1904 and 1911. It is likely that the Study of a Turkey of Gusztáv Magyar Mannheimer (1859-1937) bought in 1906 is identical with the painting donated to Kecskemét taken in the inventory with the title Turkey (Plate 4). The painter,

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