Sz. Kürti Katalin: Munkácsy és Colpach (Békéscsaba, 2010)

Resume. Munkácsy and Colpach

Munkácsy and Colpach

Mihály Munkácsy’s high reputation is playing a remarkable role in the latest chapter of the cultural relation between Luxemburg and Hungary. The painter was born as Mihály Lieb in 1844 in Munkács (today Mukacheve, Ukraine). He was left an orphan in early childhood and was grown up by his mothers uncle István Reök, a lawyer in Békéscsaba. He started learning as joiner apprentice, then got introduced in the world of fine arts by a painter Elek Szamossy. He signed under even his first paintings as Munkácsi or Munkácsy. He studied at the Academy of Fine Arts in Vienna in 1865, and in Munich in 1866-1867. Between 1868 and 1871 he was working in Düsseldorf, from where he sent to the Salon of Paris his work titled The last Day of a Condemned Man, awarded with one of the golden medals and gaining him high reputation immediately.