Barki Gergely et al.: Czóbel. A French Hungarian painter - ArtMill publications 5. (Szentendre, 2014)
Emőke Bodonyi: Czóbel's water colours and graphic works
-183. Béla Czóbel: Girl (Young Girl Standing by a Dressing-table), 1922. Szentendre, Ferenczy Museum 50 Verzeichnis der Graphischen Einzeldrucke und Mappenwerke. Potsdam: Galerie Ferdinand Möller, 1924. The catalogue of the album lists Czóbel’s five lithographs, the reproductions of two are published. I would like to thank Gergely Bárki for drawing my attention to them. 51 Bárki, Gergely: “Berény Róbert [Róbert Berény]”. In: Nyolcak (op. cit. in note 5), p 150. 52 Pataky: Czóbel Béla (op. cit. in note 24), p 18. 53 Bárki (op. cit. in note 5), p 150. 54 Horváth (op.cit. in note 23), p 19. artists - Róbert Berény, Béla Czóbel, Adolf Fényes, Károly Kernstok, Bertalan Pór and József Rippl-Rónai - who planned to work on lithographs and etchings for orders and subscription. According to Gergely Bárki, Czóbel, Adolf Fényes and Rippl-Rónai must have made at least one page each.53 The above-mentioned etching is also interesting, as its thin, diffuse system of lines foreshadow a characteristic type of Czóbel’s graphics. A great variety of etchings can be found in the oeuvre: the fine, elegant piece of the Sailboats (Plate 182) is quite different from the later, thick contoured compositions built up of vigorous, or repeated lines. Summing up Czóbel’s graphic works, the 1962 study of Dénes Pataky - knowing the material of the Hungarian National Gallery - states that the early period is best known of the prints, but mentions the large size chalk drawing of 1923, the Portrait of a Boy (Plate 177), and the chalk drawing of Károly Kernstok (Plate 196). The two works were born in the same year in Germany, still they represent a rather different drawing style. The Portrait of a Boy is an elaborate, fine piece, preserving the manner of the earlier years, slightly distorting the forms. Its speciality, however, is the verso of the canvas with the same boy portrait, in a looser, easier version. The Kernstok portrait is just the opposite, with its strict, strong-willed lines, as it is described in the study of Béla Horváth: “The handwork is robust, with certain traces of the creative vigour and impatience.”54 It is known from Horváth’s biographic interviews, that Czóbel and Kernstok met again in Berlin, after many years of not seeing each other. “During their stay there they often met, and Czóbel was drawing Kernstok several times [...] and according to Czóbel, the chalk drawing was 120 CZÓBEL, A FRENCH HUNGARIAN PAINTER 184. Béla Czóbel: Girl with Cat, 1920. Budapest, Museum of Fine Arts - Hungarian National Gallery
