Barki Gergely et al.: Czóbel. A French Hungarian painter - ArtMill publications 5. (Szentendre, 2014)
Emőke Bodonyi: Czóbel's water colours and graphic works
162. Béla Czóbel: Sitting Nude, 1920S. Szentendre, Ferenczy Museum May 1924, The First Group Exhibition of the KÚT. Budapest: Ernst Museum, 1925. National Salon [Nemzeti Szalon]. 1 1-15 April 1930, Galerie Bing, 20 Rue la Boétie, Paris. Exhibition catalogue with a list of 25 artworks. Exhibition of Contemporary Arts in Hungary in the Gallery of the Royal Society of Painters in Water Colours, 1948; Ungerske grafiker och tecknere av idag, April 1948, Nationalmuseum, Stockholm; Exposition de gouaches et dessins. De artistes francais et hongrois de l’École de Paris, 1949. 1 Czóbel Béla festőművész kiállítása: Akvarell, grafika és újabb képek [The Painter Béla Czóbel’s Exhibition: Water Colours, Graphics and New Paintings]. Introduction by Lajos Kassák. Budapest: Nemzeti Szalon, 1958. ' Kiállítási leporelló mutárgyjegyzékkel [Exhibition Flyer with a List of Works], Szentendre: Ferenczy Károly Múzeum, 1954. Czóbel grafikák [Graphic Works of Czóbel], Catalogue, with the introduction of Clarisse Philippe. Szentendre: Müvésztelepi Galéria, September, 1973. The modest, eight pages catalogue published to his individual exhibition organized in 1930, in Galerie Bing, in Paris, had two reproductions of female half nudes made with charcoal, or perhaps chalk.13 In the 1940S several exhibitions selected for display Czóbel’s graphic works.14 The exhibition in the National Salon [Nemzeti Szalon] in 1958 gave an emphasized role to his water colours and drawings,15 like the four years earlier display of the Károly Ferenczy Museum, where together with Czóbel Mária Modok, István llosvai Varga and Piroska Szántó were also participating.16 The ninety-year old artist was greeted in 1973 with an exhibition of 45 graphic sheets in the Gallery of the Artists’ Colony, Szentendre.17 Although most of the memories dwell on the daily routine of the artist, still they mention primarily Czóbel starting out for painting in the neighbourhood, or working in his studio. “I have compulsory hours for painting. I work regularly, like a clerk.” - he answered to the question of János Frank in an interview in 1965. “There was no such special guest, ambassador, he would stop working for. If the suburban railway [H ÉV] arrived too early, guests coming from Budapest were to wait in the garden for the ritual of looking at pictures -a ritual resembling the ceremony of house concerts - on an offhand exhibition.” - continued the picturesque narration of János Frank.18 Lajos Kassák reported on the same continuous wish for creation: “He is constantly working as if doing it for an inner impulse”19 For Czóbel drawing was an equal way of expression beside painting, in a way of life subordinating everything for art, supported by the first academic study years in Munich, or later at the Julian Academy. The direct connection between the artist and his surroundings was presumably formed in Nagybánya (today Baia Mare, Romania), inspiring him to use the simplest motifs for his drawings, and not wasting much time for searching the subject. The list of the artworks of an early exhibition also leads us to this conclusion, as the titles mention everyday subjects like a dog, a goose, rabbits, a boy’s head, a woman with umbrella, a reclining woman, and so on.20 Beside the displays a few memoirs prove the importance of drawing for Czóbel, he enjoyed showing graphic works together with paintings for his guests, waiting for their opinion. Katalin Néray summed up his experiences: “The great old man of Hungarian painting was so lively in his Titian-, or rather Picasso-age, presenting his newest paintings and drawings.”21 Pascal-Emmanuel Gallet was describing the huge drawing blocks in Czóbel’s studio with a variety of his works considered good, or less better.22 Károly Kernstok’s wife has memories of the 1906 Paris reunion of Czóbel and Kernstok, the former was their everyday guest in their house, where they were making drawings together of the artist’s son, or other figures.23 Czóbel’s donations to public collections, besides the graphic works staged in the exhibitions and the memories of daily sketches, prove his holding them in the same high esteem as his paintings, of course, always placing emphasis on his works representing the latest trends. The Ferenczy Museum in Szentendre preserves the largest graphic collection of Czóbel, and although important works are to be found in the Janus Pannonius. Museum, Pécs, the Rippl-Rónai Museum, Kaposvár, the Ottó Herman Museum, Miskolc and in the Deák Collection in Székesfehérvár, the importance of the more than thousand sheets of the Szentendre collection no CZÓBEL, A FRENCH HUNGARIAN PAINTER
