Barki Gergely et al.: Czóbel. A French Hungarian painter - ArtMill publications 5. (Szentendre, 2014)
Mimi Kratochwill: Béla Czóbel's mature period, 1925-1976
308. Béla Czóbel: Rue Vital, 1954. Private collection 309. Béla Czóbel: Paris Houses, 1954. Budapest, Artchivum Art Historical Documentation Research Institute reclining girl’s back and the bottom part other body also appear in the reflection. In this captivating composition Czóbel set several planes, one behind the other to create the illusion of distance and depth. The girl, who all but exudes youth, calmly daydreams with her eyes half shut. The harmony of reds dominates the whole picture contrasted with the intermittent blues. Sadly the artist became more and more ill and had to be looked after in hospital, sometimes together with his wife, who was cared for in the next room of the same ward. However, each time he left hospital with renewed strength and although he did not work as much as before, new pictures always awaited completion on each of the erected painting easels in his large studio on Kelenhegy street. From one sitting to the next, the still-life arrangements, the rocking chairs and armchairs set up for models waited for his return. During the summers in Szentendre Czóbel would ask teenage girls from the nearby school to model for him and paid them an hourly rate for “posing”. He also invited his friends and their acquaintances to sit for him in his Kelenhegy studio. There were portraits in Szentendre which Czóbel could not finish in summer so at one time, for example, he asked one of his acquaintances to come to his Buda studio to continue on the incomplete work. Nevertheless, one of such cases was not the most successful. His old acquaintance, Mátyás Czája, a physical education teacher from Szentendre who came from a famous circus family and “sat” for several pictures, was depicted in summeras an athlete with a nice tan and summery colours but in winter he presented quite a different figure with his pale skin, so the picture could only be completed the following summer. Czóbel always insisted on a concrete image, which he then abstracted to make his works. In 1970 the Budapest Art Hall [Műcsarnok] asked if they could organize a large-scale exhibition of his oeuvre. Czóbel had waited for this occasion for a long time, since a retrospective presentation of his works collected from both Hungary and abroad had never been done before. Neither his weak condition, nor his wife’s illness prevented him from travelling to Paris to survey the exhibition material and to arrange for the works to be loaned. Up to that point he had wanted to exhibit his material from home at exhibitions abroad for decades. Now, however, he was doing his utmost to bring as many works home as possible to display them in his life work exhibition. At this time he no longer travelled by train but rather by plane. His trip was a success, with public and private collectors 188 CZÓBEL, A FRENCH HUNGARIAN PAINTER
