Barki Gergely et al.: Czóbel. A French Hungarian painter - ArtMill publications 5. (Szentendre, 2014)

Emőke Bodonyi: Czóbel's water colours and graphic works

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BÉLA CZOBLl

Lithographien

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179. BÉLA CZÓBEL: SITTING LITTLE GIRL, 1920S. Szentendre, Ferenczy Museum

180. Below left, graphic album of Ferdinand Möller with the lithographs of Béla Czóbel, 1924.

published, each of them containing ten pieces of original graphic works. The purpose of their publication was gathering supporters for modern art, and bringing together collectors and artists. The first album contained the works of the best Expressionist artists, and the fact that as early as 1920 together with Czóbel artists of small nations were also present, shows the openmindedness of the editor and the publisher Kiepenhauer.38

The second issue was published in 1920, and its third album contained Czóbel’s cold needle etching Writing Girl, as well as the lithograph Sitting Girl (Plate 170).39 The third album of the third issue of 1922 was showing the etching Girl with Doll, while the fourth one the etching Girl (with other title: Young Woman Standing by a Dressing-table) (Plate 183).4° The albums of the fourth issue were published in 1923, the lithograph Girl Head and the etching Girl were in the first one.41 In 1926, in the second album of the fifth issue, the lithograph Female Half Nude was also published.42 The prints had the embossed stamp of Die Schaffenden, and the biographies of the artists were added to these albums. Paul Westheim’s biography of Czóbel was published in the third album of the 1920 and 1922 issues.

A stylistic change can be followed on Czóbel’s graphic sheets: the first pieces represent a geometric transcription of the Dutch period (Sitting Girl) and a strongly deforming expressive rendering (Writing Girl), or an expression of simplified forms (Girl with Doll), but the Female Half Nude mentioned last follows the easy sensuality of the water colours, emphasizing only the most important details.

Several pieces of graphic works were published in the periodical Kunstblatt, also edited by Paul Westheim, among others, the water colour of the Child with Rocking Horse (Plate i4-4).43This is the place worth mentioning that the print version and the gobelin made of the large size drawing of the Shepherd Boy (Shepherd Boy with Goat) made at the time of the arrival of his wife and

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38 Windhöfel, Lutz: Paul Westheim und Das Kunstblatt: Ein Zeitschrift und ihr Herausgeber in der Weimarer Republik. Wien: Böhlau, 1995, p 276. He mentions Czóbel among foreign artists whom Westheim, together with others, like Josef Capek (Bohemia), Aloys Wach (Austria), Hermann Huber, Karl Hügin, Alfred H. Pellegrini, Walter Helbig and Niklaus Stoecklin (Switzerland) might have included in the last two or three issues of Die Schaffenden.

39 A version of the Writing Girl is available in Hungarian private collection, the lithograph ’s charcoal version is in the Ferenczy Museum, Szentendre, while the lithograph is in the Deák Collection, Székesfehérvár.

40 The master copy of the etching

entitled Girl is preserved in the Ferenczy Museum, Szentendre.

181. Béla Czóbel: Reclining Girl, 1925. Szentendre, Ferenczy Museum

CZÓBEL, A FRENCH HUNGARIAN PAINTER118