Végvári Lajos: Imreh Zsigmond (Borsodi Kismonográfiák 13. Miskolc, 1981)

ZSIGMOND IMREH (Summary) Zsigmond IMREH (1900—1965) is one of the noteworthy personalities of painting in Miskolc. It is due to him that the naturalistic plain-air school, so far ruling in the town, gave place to a moderner artistic view. Zsigmond IMREH was born in Illyefalva (Transylvania) in a large family. He attanded secondary school in Kolozsvár (Cluj), then he matriculated at the School of Fine Arts in Budapest by the help of the town grant. He spent ten years there, finishing artist and teacher training courses. His dilligence raised him above his fellow students. His conditions were bad since he lived merely on scholarship and grants gained in competitions. Paralelly with his first years of study a reform movement in art pedagogy was developing in the School. Owing to this movement some artists with modern art view got place in the professorial staff. Imreh pleaded for admission in the studio of one of these artists, one of the leading personalities of Hungarian fauvism, János VASZARY (1867—1939). Vaszary often perplexed the public. He used to say: „Modern art has more to do with a locomotive than with Raffaello." At the beginning Zsigmond Imreh was seriously impelled by Vaszary, thus getting acquainted also with the results of modern French painting, but later their different temper caused a series of conflicts. Imreh spent a summer in the colony of conservative artists. The impressions reaching him there led him towards a more imitative depiction of nature. The complete change of front of one of his best students disappointed Vaszary. His fellow artists tell, that Zsigmond Imreh broke with everything and chose loneliness. He occupied job in the country, married and settled there. He taught in the Calvinist Secondary School in Miskolc, and spread artistic knowledge outside school, too. He educated the public not only for himself but also for a new art. Zsigmond Imreh, contrary to Vaszary's criticism, was not conservative: his view and mode of expression unite the emotions of the new art and the traditional peaceful contemplation of natureDuring the decades of loneliness and isolation he reached a synthesis of his double-faced art, fitting the best his human and artistic temper. He broke short with the alluring offer of manifesto esthetics and formed an „ars poetica" of his own aiming at stability, beauty and emotional intimity. His tempered colours fit in the peacefulness of 39