Barki Gergely et al.: Czóbel. A French Hungarian painter - ArtMill publications 5. (Szentendre, 2014)
Mimi Kratochwill: Béla Czóbel's mature period, 1925-1976
307. BÉLA CZÓBEL: RECLINING WOMAN (VENUS OF SZENTENDRE), 1968. SZENTENDRE, FERENCZY MUSEUM Their trips to Paris became ever less frequent, but while there on one occasion his wife suffered a stroke. Although they hoped for an easy and speedy recovery, Mária was no longer able to undertake such long journeys. After this time Czóbel spent only shorter periods in Paris as he could not bring himself to leave his beloved city for good. Travelling alone was, however, not the same, and visits by his daughter from Hamburg did not cheer him up as much as before. Johnson, the above-mentioned famous Chicago art historian and Czóbel’s patron, began to devote even more time to the artist’s work. In addition to staging individual exhibitions for Czóbel in Chicago, he displayed his pictures alongside those by famous artists in his collection and published high quality, voluminous catalogues. Czóbel’s works at the 1966 exhibition were showcased together with those by Seurat, Bonnard, Modigliani, Léger, Picasso and Matisse. It was through Johnson’s help and organisation that in 1969 Czóbel had an exhibition opened at a new venue in Paris, the Hotel Drouet, opposite the Élysée Palace. The event attracted a lot of press coverage. In the same year in Paris Czóbel bought his little Renault, which he would mainly use in Szentendre. (We know from one of his wife’s letters that he learned to drive in Paris at the age of 74.) His friend, André Dunoyer de Segonzac purchased Czóbel’s large-size work entitled Reclining Woman (Venus of Szentendre), which he later generously donated to the Czóbel Museum in Szentendre (Plate 307). The artist executed this painting in his Szentendre studio and put a great deal of thought into it. The picture shows a young woman in a bathing costume reclining on the striped upholstery of a red-and-brown couch, stretched out and resting on her elbow. The mirror behind the couch reflects the painter and his easel, as well as the studio window through which the branches of green foliage of the trees in the garden can be seen. The delicate contours of the BÉLA CZÓBEL’S MATURE PERIOD, 1925-1976 187
