Barki Gergely et al.: Czóbel. A French Hungarian painter - ArtMill publications 5. (Szentendre, 2014)
Emőke Bodonyi: Czóbel's water colours and graphic works
196. Béla Czóbel: Portrait of Károly Kernstok, 1923. Esztergom, Hungarian National Museum - Bálint Balassa Museum 59 Szabó Júlia: “A rajz és az akvarell a Gresham-kör művészetében [Drawing and Water Colour in the Art of the Gresham Circle]”, Művészet [Art], 1976, No. 12, pp 20-21. 60 Kratochwill, Mimi: “Czóbel Béláról [On Béla Czóbel]”. In: Czóbel Béla emlékkönyv (op. cit. in note 22), n.p. [25]. As it was emphasized by György Gombosi, the linear character of the drawings is gradually changing, in the early thirties the contours still appear, but looses its firmness by the artist’s use of patches. The effect of the lines vigorously put on the whole gives also a picturesque quality to the graphic works. From the thirties on, similarly to the works of the other members of the Gresham circle in this period, Czóbel was trying to reach an even better finishing of the surface, using the material to provide the wished effect: pencil or charcoal drawings (lines) were often covered by water colour or combined with colour chalk. As Júlia Szabó described this, the surface was a kind of embroidery.59 Not just the technique was modified, but similarly to the paintings, the subject, the position of the model, too, and the character of the person represented came through, the rendering is more realistic. The topics are simple, as it is mentioned in the memories of Mimi Kratochwill. When moving to his studio in Kelenhegyi street in Budapest, “[...] late autumn and winter, when the weather allowed it, he [Czóbel] often sat out to his door, and painted the garden, the gate, the plants.”60 He took his subjects from his surrounding in Szentendre, too, such as sleeping figures, digging man, reading or knitting women in interior, cart animals, cats, chicken, easily talking men, coffee house scenes, different interiors, tables with jugs and brushes, vases or pots with flowers, watering cans, townscapes, gates, bathing figures, garden scenes with ladder. He often made drawings of his friends, many famous figures among them, sometimes with a caricature like 124 CZÓBEL, A FRENCH HUNGARIAN PAINTER 195. BÉLA CzÓBEL: PORTRAIT OF l_EO STEIN, 1920S. BUDAPEST, Museum of Fine Arts - Hungarian National Gallery
