Horváth János: Kunffy Lajos - A somogytúri Kunffy Emlékmúzeum katalógusa (Kaposvár, 2005)

LAJOS KUNFFY OF SOMOGYTÚR (1869-1962) Written by János Horváth Translated into English by Charles De Kunffy Lajos Kunffy this celebrated Hungarian artist was witness to nearly a century of extraordinary artistic and historical changes. As an artist he bequeathed to posterity a highly valuable legacy, the artwork of a lifetime, and as a member of the intellectual aristocracy he left behind an exemplary record of public life. His career began in a small Hungarian village during the last third of the nineteenth century He spent nearly twenty years in the capital city of art, Paris, where he was a regular contributor to the exhibitions of the salons. The themes of his cheerfully sunlit, impressionistic paintings and their subject matter came from the country life he observed on his estates. Peasants in their native costumes and Gypsies in their vividly colored clothing gave his pictures an exotic attractiveness similar to that found in the canvasses of Simon Lucien, or in Cottet's with the people of Brittany, or in the pictures of Remington with American Indians. During the height of his career Kunffy was a member of the select artistic and intellectual elite of Rrench society and was also an intimate of rodin, Munkácsy besnard, Lhermitte, La touche and simon Lucien. Having proven to be a clever cultural diplomat, he was awarded the Cross of the Knights of the French Legion of Honor. Owing to Changes in society and national borders that resulted from the two World Wars, he was gradually isolated from europe. Hist titled, large landholdings were confiscated by the Communist government after the Second World War. From then on only the respect he earned through his art saved him from political persecution. He is remembered by those now living as a peaceful, white-bearded patriarch, whose home in Somogytur was transformed into a pleasant museum. Those, however, who would also read the artist's remembrances will enjoy and be surprised bybehindthescenes secrets they hold. In this booklet we will, among other things, rely on Lajos Kunffy's own words to provide the categorizations of his art according to various periods and we will attempt to convey the mood of these eras as they are revealed in his writings. Lajos Kunffy of Somogytur was born into an art-loving family on October 2, 1869. His mother, who gave birth to four children, made life more colorful and spiritually richer for her family by creating folk-art embroideries and by filling her home with much music making. She exeplified social consciousnes by organizing benefits for charitable ceuses. His father, Adolf Kunffy of Somogytur, was „the last Garibaldist", who in his youth was inspired by the ideals of Lajos Kossuth and went to serve with garibaldi's troups in Naples for four years, under the banner of the hungarian Legion. Here gathered the old soldiers of the 1848 Freedom Fighters to fight for freedom from Habsburg rule once 63