Kertész Róbert - V. Szász József - Zsolnay László szerk.: Szolnoki művésztelep 1902-2002 - 100 éves a szolnoki művésztelep (2001)

The Artist's Colony of Szolnok 1902-2002

The warm welcome of the petition that was handed in accelerated the plan, which had been being nursed for decades. On 28th April, 1901 the Artistic Association was formed in Szolnok, the aim of which was to build houses for studios and conduct the life of the colony. The basic idea put down in the charter of foundation, and the goal of the association is still apposite today: "To develop the public taste by espousing fine art and industrial art, and to bring connoisseurship and virtuosity into the national civilization." The Artists' Colony of Szolnok was built at the confluence of the Tisza and the Zagyva over the ruins of the castle in a considerably short period of time — a little more than in a year. The initiation ceremonies of the two buildings with twelve studios were held on 29th June, 1902. From the foundation to the end of World War II The first studios were occupied by Sándor Bihari, Adolf Fényes, László Hegedűs, Dániel Mihalik, Ferenc Olgyay, Károly Pongrácz, Lajos Szlányi, Béla Vidovszky and Lajos Zombory. The life of the colony was determined by the charter of the Artistic Association. Next to the regular members, guests coloured the art palette of the colony. In summer it was crowded with art students who came here to learn from the older masters. The exhibitions organized annually in September were always great events in the town's life. Work at the artists' colony went on from early spring till late autumn, for winter the members returned to their regular residence from Budapest to Paris. Dániel Mihalik, Lajos Szlányi and Ferenc Olgyay, who joined them later, were simply called the "landscape-painter triad". The name was given by their Budapest friends because they had often worked and exhibited together, and at the beginning even their styles were similar. Mihalik and Szlányi had visited Paris before, they had brought the light colour scale of their pictures, which proved to be very useful to convey the atmosphere of the lowland landscape. The members of the "triad" went asunder from each other after a while in their styles. Mihalik came to Szolnok at the beginning of his development and there he reached his artistic expressive form after slow and gradual inner maturation. His death in 1910 meant severe loss; nearly the whole population of town acted as his pallbearers. After a few years Olgyay left for the new Artists' Colony of Kecskemét, but Szlányi continued to paint the banks of the two rivers and the park of the colony until the eruption of World War II. Lajos Zombory became a member of the colony to replace Boruth, who had resigned his studio in the last minute. He taught drawing animals to students who visited the colony in summer. He was one of the leading masters of the colony, who drew his themes on the animal kingdom. He had completed his studies in Munich at Heinrich Zügel, an animal painter, but he was just as eminent as a painter of interior pictures and landscapes. The tone of his best paintings is always dynamic and virile partly due to his buoyant radiating colours. He was no painter of details but he never fell into the shortcoming of rough-and-ready work, he never slobbered, but neither did he depict coolly; his pictures expressed his love towards the Hungarian land. Before starting his art studies, he had been an architectural draughtsman in his hometown, Szeged, later he made good use of this skill. He helped the town with his aesthetic advice and town-planning ideas until his death in 1933. One of the most noteworthy members of the Szolnok landscape-painting school was Béla Vidovszky. He became a member of the colony after his studies in Budapest, Munich and Paris. His talent mainly manifested itself in landscapes; these show his excellent perception of colours and his extraordinary perceptibility. His interior pictures and portraits are also worth mentioning. Adolf Fényes arrived at the colony as a fully developed master who had won several awards and later he became one of the most faithful artists of the colony. As early as the beginning of the 1890s he frequently turned up in Szolnok as the guest of his friend, Adolf Kohner, a landowner, and started painting the homesteads, farmhouses and willow-plantations of the area. His art was strongly related to Szolnok, it was here where mainly it took nourishment and gained its inspiration. Partly under the influence of Nagybánya and Szolnok, and partly following his own inclinations he altered his palette more colourful around 1904. Breaking loose from the influence of the darker studio illumination, he turned towards greater compositions, landscapes and then later still-lifes. The sunny and cheerful representation got Fényes' new "programme", he wanted to grab the life of Szolnok without any changes in its entirety, so — similarly to the Nagybánya school of art — he began to 141