Pirint Andrea: Munkácsy Miskolcon (Múzeumi Mozaik 5. Miskolc, 2006)

MUNKÁCSY PAINTINGS FROM THE UNITED STATES A SELECTION FROM IMRE PÁKH'S PRIVATE COLLECTION Mihály Munkácsy (Mukacevo (Munkács), 1844 - Endenich, 1900) was a formative master of Hungarian painting. His realistic genre pictures initiated a new period in the history of Hungarian art and created a specific school of painting. The painter was born in Mukacevo (Munkács) 1844 and soon afterwards the whole family moved to Miskolc. His father worked for the financial authorities and was a 'salt officer'. The parents soon died and left the children orphaned. Each of the five children was placed in the care of a different relative. The young Mihály went to live with his mother's elder brother who lived in Békéscsaba. His foster-father wanted him to learn a trade so he became an artisan's apprentice, spending his childhood years in misery. His first teacher was the painter Elek Szamossy. It was him who encouraged Munkácsy to go to [Buda]Pest and try his luck there. His talent was quickly recognised and he won the patronage of the Fine Arts Soci ety. For a short period of time he studied at the academy in Vienna and subsequently at the Munich and Düsseldorf academies. In 1870 he won the gold medal at the Paris Salon with his painting The Last Day of a Condemned Man (Siralomház). This fundamentally changed his life and soon his art was also vividly transformed. He lived in Paris from 1871 until his death in 1900. His career was greatly influenced and enhanced by his marriage to Baron de Marches's widow. Munkácsy was a popular and celebrated artist in his own lifetime. He received several awards both from the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy and from France. His paintings, especially his salon paintings, were immensely popular. Owing to his art dealer's wide range of contacts American private collectors were competing for his pictures. This exhibition provides a selection from the private collection of the New York businessman, Imre Pákh. Just like Munkácsy himself this renowned art collector was born in Mukacevo (Munkács). In the 1980s he started to build up a collection of the paintings of his famous fellowcountryman with great enthusiasm. In addition to the twenty seven Munkácsy paintings two portraits of the painter are also exhibited, one by József Rippl-Rónai, the other by Hans Temple. Three pictures from the collection of the local Herman Ottó M Liseum have been added to the selection from the US. Visitors to our exhibition can see pictures which have very rarely been on public display until quite recently, and most people will have had no access to most of them. This rich collection of landscapes and salon paintings will be new to Munkácsy researchers and the general public alike. Imre Pákh's collection gives a cross section of the Munkácsy oeuvre. Portrait of Emil Munkácsy'

s daughter (Munkácsy Emil kislányának arcképe) is one of the earliest works of the painter. He painted it in 1863, the year he moved to Pest from the country. His artistic abilities were merely the skills he had acquired from his master, the itinerant painter Elek Szamossy. This work is characterised by careful drawing, emphatic contours and a precise but dry style. It follows the mainstream of Hungarian portrait painting in the Reform Age. The suggestive expression of the child, however, foreshadows the outstanding characterdrawing power of the later portraits. The Yawning Apprentice (Ásító inas) was made some five or six years later when the painter was studying in Düsseldorf. It clearly reflects