A Herman Ottó Múzeum évkönyve 48. (2009)

Sümegi György: Adalékok a miskolci művésztelep történetéhez

NOTES ON THE HISTORY OF THE ARTISTS' COLONY IN MISKOLC Following World War 1, the greater part of the territory of the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy and Hungary was carved up between the countries of the Little Entente, an event which had a lasting impact on subsequent art life and art education of Hungary. The Artists' Colony at Nagybánya served as the basis of lectures and summer exercises in plein air painting for the art students of the Academy of Fine Arts. The annexation of Transylvania and with it, the artists' colony at Nagybánya to Romania meant that this gap had to be filled somehow. The Kecskemét Artists' Colony, undergoing a serious crisis at the time, was reorganised by Imre Révész, one of the teachers at the Academy, in a "Christian and national spirit" after the revolutions of 1918-1919. Drawing from the experiences of the Open Art School of Miskolc, directed by Ödön Bartus, Dezső Meilinger and Dániel Nyitray, the Miskolc Artists' Colony was organised by Károly Lyka and Ágost Benkhard from the Academy of Fine Arts with the active support of the officials of Miskolc. The first art students from the Academy arrived in Summer 1921; financial support from the Ministry of Education and the town council enabled the purchase and renovation of the building, which in turn ensured the necessary conditions for continuous work on the colony. The perhaps most important record among the documents presented in the study is the colony's mission statement ("The first steps towards the creation of the Artists' Colony in Miskolc - Open letter to the citizens of Miskolc", signed by the Artists' Colony in Miskolc), expressing a debt of gratitude to the local press and hoping for continued interest from the broader public and the town officials. The main goal of the colony was to find its place in the process of the decentralisation of art, to disseminate aesthetic values and promote a broader public awareness of art, and to create meaningful artworks and a lively art scene in Miskolc. The other documents include the writings of Károly Lyka, dealing with practical issues encountered during the foundation of the artists' colony and the obstacles to be surmounted. Two letters written from the Academy of Fine Arts shed light on the maintenance of the colony as viewed from the Academy. The introduction by Lyka to the catalogue accompanying the jubilee exhibition, "25 years of Miskolc in Hungarian painting" (1948), offers valuable insights for future research on the artists' colony alongside a list of the artists and their works. These documents shed important new light on the activities of the Artists' Colony at Miskolc and add new hues to the already known ones, as a preliminary to the publication of the primary documents on the colony's foundation. György Sümegi