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

Gergely Barki: Czóbel from Paris to Paris 1903-1925

38. BÉLA CZÓBEL: TOWN DETAIL (BRÜGGE), 1905. SZENTENDRE, FERENCZY MUSEUM

BRÜGGE, ZEEBRÜGGE, HEIST (?), OSTENDE (?) UNDISCLOSED LOCATIONS IN CZÓBEL’S EARLY OEUVRE

In November 1905, an unnamed reporter wrote about Czóbel in The Week [A Hét] periodical: “and this young person who lives out in Paris and Belgium truly lives, because he works with wild abandon. We await his further development.”11 The painter did not return to Nagybánya in 1905, as was his custom in the previous years. Instead, he made a protracted stay in Belgium. Scholarly literature has not mentioned this previously, but now we can obtain an ever clearer sketch of his activities around Brügge and Zeebrügge.That is when he painted the male portrait Worker in Brügge (or Fisherman), which he dedicated to his colleague, Dezső Czigány, while immortalizing the setting of its preparation in the title (Plate 39). The man’s counterpart, a portrait study that resurfaced a few years ago, is the Old Woman from Brügge (Plate 40), which also preserves the site of its creation in the title. When it was shown at the anniversary exhibition of the Nagybánya artist colony in 1912, reference to the location was effaced from the title on to the back side of the work, so as not to cast

11 [n.a.]: “Czóbel Béla [Béla Czóbel]”,

A Hét [The Week], 5 November 1905, 26:45, p 733. Az UTAK I, p HO.

CZÓBEL FROM PARIS TO PARIS, 1903-1925

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