Barki Gergely et al.: Czóbel. A French Hungarian painter - ArtMill publications 5. (Szentendre, 2014)
Gergely Barki: Czóbel from Paris to Paris 1903-1925
IN THE FOREFRONT IN PARIS The next year, in the spring of 1908, Czóbel’s role within the French Fauve movement grew stronger. He received an exclusive exhibition in Ms Berthe Weill’s modest little gallery in Montmartre, which served as the first venue for the time’s most progressive artists, and thus other Fauves as well. The exhibition - which ran from March till April 1908, featuring some 30 oil paintings (mostly from Nyerges) and 30-40 drawings - received serious local press.33 According to Berthe Weill’s memoirs, it was also a moral victory of note.34 Although, from a material point of view, the gallery owner did not find the Czóbel exhibition particularly lucrative, we know that many of his pictures were sold.35 Undoubtedly, Man in Straw Hat changed hands for the first time. Czóbel also sent five works to the Salon des Indépendants, which awaited visitors on the very same days. Whether this was superb timing or actually hurt sales, we do not know. The fact remains that, in these days, 35 of his paintings could be viewed in the French capital. 66. Gelett Burgess, around 1910 67. Béla Czóbel: Moulin de la Galette, around 1907-1908. Missing 33 Among others: Hepp, Pierre: “Expositions Louise Perman et Bela Czobel (Galerie Henry Graves - Galerie В. Weill)”, La Chronique des Artes, 4 April 1908, vol. 14, p 128; Malpel, Charles : “Quelque Salons. Petites Expositions”, Notes sur I’art d’aujourd’hui st peut-étre du demain. Paris-Toulouse, 1910, p 180. 34 Pan! Dans l’oeil... ou trente ans dans les coulisses de la peinture contemporaine 7900-7930 [Just look!... Or, Thirty Years Behind the Scenes of Modern Painting, 1900-1930]. Paris: Librairie Lipschutz, 1933, p 148. 35 Czóbel’s postcard to György Bölöni. Petőfi Literary Museum, Archive, Inv. No. V. 4132/102/3 (György Bölöni’s legacy). “Dear Bölönyi [sic!], Do inform me by return post how you handled the sale - i.e., I want to have sent those pictures I sold from Weill’s. The rest I’ll leave there for the summer. I hope the matter will be arranged somehow. Warm greetings till we meet again, Czóbel, 6 April 1908.” It was certainly not just his activity that brought him to the attention of Gelett Burgress, an American writer, poet, painter and journalist who paid a brief visit to Czóbel’s studio in Cité Falguiére. During his French sojourn in 1908, Gelett Burgess - presumably receiving orientation at Leo and Gertrude Stein’s Saturday evenings - visited the studios of Paris’ most progressive artists. On the basis of interviews he conducted with them, he wrote his article The Wild Men of Paris, which is heavily quoted in the international scholarly literature.36 Although this important article only appeared in 1910, Czóbel already featured one year earlier in Burgess’ novel, which mentions him several times as one of the most important members of the Parisian avant-garde.37 While visiting Czóbel, Gelett Burgess took several photographs. Thus, luckily, we know two of his paintings which have since been lost - through reproduction, at least. Besides the female portrait which bears the date 1907 (Plate 68), a remarkably expressive, multi-figured composition - a sensational item in Czóbel’s oeuvre - calls attention to itself. It depicts the dancing bustle at the Moulin de la Galette, presumably in the spring of 1908 (Plate 67). This principle work of expressive primitivism was still mentioned by German critics in the 1920s,38 but has since disappeared without a trace, along with many other works from that year which we only know from mere descriptions. According to our sources, these were the most progressive works of his career - the most ultra-modern in the eyes of his contemporaries - which seemed scandalous even to a French public accustomed to extremes. The scandalous appearance of his pictures, then considered the height of extravagance, also occurred in Hungary in 1908. The first exhibition of MIÉNK (Circle of Hungarian Impressionists and Naturalists) opened on 1 January, where (according to the journalists) alongside his earlier, 54 CZÓBEL, A FRENCH HUNGARIAN PAINTER
