Zalatnai Pál - Kovács Zita: Miskolczy Ferenc 1899-1944 - A Bajai Türr István Múzeum kiadványai 33. (Baja, 2014)
circulation of art in the capital city and the study trips to abroad between the two world wars. iHe kept in touch with Imre Oltványi, who also had connections to Baja and with the father in law of Oltványi who was a curio-hunter, with art writer Miklós Rózsa who was an organizer of the progressive art-life of Hungary. He also connected to the artists around them and with art sponsors: the KUT and the Gresham-group. In the second half of his artistic work (1924- 1930) he did numerous Hungarian and foreign (not only artistic, but also ethnical) study trips. In the Urania Filmtheater of Baja (together with his architect brother László Miskolczy) they worked as ornating sculptors and they could travel to Germany as a reward at the end of 1923. The year of 1924 was spent in Munich as a student of Sándor Kubinyi and then he went to the freeschool of Hans Hofmann. Under the influence of the European Avant-Garde, in the school of Hans Hoffmann, and later, returning to Hungary, meeting the new spirit spreading in the country the KUT led by Miklós Rózsa, the UME and their exhibition place, meeting in the rooms of the National Saloon ment a turning point in the art of Miskolczy. At the end of his study trip in Germany, after returning in 1924, on his first exhibition in the National Saloon, he showed his works done in Ocsény, Baja and Jánoshalma, in the years preceding his studies in Germany. Also the critics in the capital city paid attention to this early artistic period (1918-1924). About his first exhibition organized in the National Saloon in 1924, the Pesti Napló wrote the followings: „Ferenc Miskolczy's pictures shining in pure colours and his graphics of a very rich fantasy bring a pleasant surprise for the visitor". This young, hardly twenty-five-year-old painter starts with such a great dash, he has so much to tell, and he goes for such high goals, that we can look on the following chapters of his career with the greatest expectations. On his pictures painted in Ocsény, we can witness the fire of exaggerated coloures, the softness that comes through in spite of the brutally wide brush usage, the brilliant tracing and composition value bring back those values into our minds with which we could meet in the older pictures of István Csók. Miskolczy is also an artist of the copperengraving pin,that is particularly proven in the cycle entitled "Otherworld". Some of his soft pastels make our good opinion about him even stronger. Regularly being involved in the exhibitions of the National Saloon in Budapest and in the artistic life of the capital even after 1924 brought him financial and ethic recognition. He rented an atelier in Nagymező Street in Budapest until 1930 and processed his observations from schools of France, Munich, Spain and Italy. His copper-engravings made in the spirituality of Altdorfer, Schongauer and Dürer blend rural realism with prime fantasy in a gentle, modern and low-key artistic way. These pieces came out in three separate publications with the foreword 46
