Gecse Annabella et al. (szerk.): Tisicum - A Jász-Nagykun-Szolnok Megyei Múzeumok Évkönyve 18. (Szolnok, 2009)
Irodalom- és művészettörténet - Szabó István: Ami Szolnokot országosan is ismertté tette VIII. A Szolnoki Művésztelep 1949–1950
Tisicum XVIII. István Szabó What made Szolnok famous nationwide 8 The Artists ’ Colony of Szolnok, 1949-1950 After the end of World War 2, the artists’ colony was damaged; during the war many objects of art of the Artistic Association and private collections were destroyed or lost. After clearing up the ruins, they made four studios of the colony habitable. Ferenc Chiovini, who had returned from Besenyszög, Mihály Patay, who had demobilized from the army and had lost nearly everything, native Szolnok citizen Sándor Botos, and Jenő Benedek, the art teacher of the Ferenc Verseghy Secondary Grammar School, occupied them. It was the “official criticism” of their art that determined the character of the Szolnok Artists’ colony between 1949 and 1956. For this reason, we examined the data related to them in different sources (in journals called Free Art, Creation, Fiungarian Art and in the local press). There are very few data from 1949-1950. After the one-party system gained strength, at the turn of the 50’s, party directives determined who were the “progressive, social realist” artists to acknowledge. At the 50th anniversary of the colony, Lajos Végvári published a politically committed and perfectly timed demagogical history of the colony, which literally expunged the colony. His book is characterised by all the mis-statements of the controlled communist party oriented point of view of the era. It was then when they started to nullify August von Pettenkoffen and Aba-Novák, to degrade Tibor Pólya, and to pillory the social evenings of the colony that was fighting for its very survival. Végvári highlighted Benedek as a reciprocal pole, because he was the most suitable to propagate the new socialist regime, however, it was this applause that divested Benedek of the possibility that his art could be measured by its own merits. At the time when even the official journal, the Free Art started questioning Benedek’s photographic style and his direct choice of subject matter, Végvári wanted Szolnok to be seen as some kind of social realist artistic centre. For this reason several ex-members turned their back to the colony and denied its past. The critical judgement of these years cast a slur on those artists as well who would come to settle down at the Szolnok colony. 640
