Gulyás Katalin et al. (szerk.): Tisicum - A Jász-Nagykun-Szolnok Megyei Múzeumok Évkönyve 21. (Szolnok, 2012)

Művészettörténet - Szabó István: Ami Szolnokot országosan is ismertté tette X. Az 1953–1956. évek művészetelepi eseményei

TISICUM XXI. - MŰVÉSZETTÖRTÉNET

Szabó István

What made Szolnok well-known nationwide X.

The relatively homogeneous history of the Szolnok colony of artists is confined to the period between 1901 and 1950. We tried to follow the activities of the reduced colony after 1950 from the local press and volumes of Free Art. These were completed with the courses of career of artists who were related to the colony but did not consider themselves as of local origins in order to illustrate the re-organised state of the cultural, and, above all, the artistic state of the country.

In 1952, Jenő Benedek was awarded with Kossuth prize, and then he moved to the capital. His studio was given to a former Rudnay student, János P. Bak, who stayed here between 1953 and 1958. Sándor Bódog (awarded with Munkácsy prize in 1955) left the colony in 1958 after his collective exhibition. It wasn’t until 1956 that all 12 studios became usable again. After 1958, the colony was re-populated with young painters, sculptors and graphic artists. A new era began among new structural and operational conditions with mostly young artists starting out fresh on their careers. Most of them have now finished life’s work, and are being analysed in thick volumes of studies and monographs. From the complete and partial writings and data, one day a genuine history of the only artists’ colony that has been operating in Hungary for more than 110 years might be compiled.

(Translated by Dezső Darabont)

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