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

Museum of Kaposvar's collection of modern art. He maintained a home at Kaposvár until the time of his father's death in 1934. During a two-year-period (1937 to 1938) he painted at the Dalmatian Coast of the Adriatic and then, after that, was in ill health for years. In 1942 he surfaced with paintings executed in a new technique, exhibiting at the Tamas Gallery in Budapest. The appreciative reviews in the press talked about a rejuvenation of Kunffy He survived the most dramatic years of the Second World War in Budapest, While his house insomogytur was vandalized and robbed. Nearly one thousand of his paintings disappeared or were damaged. Hiding in underground shelters, he survived the Siege of Budapest. He left a diary recording these oppresive days. His large land holdings were confiscated after the war by the Communists. His beautiful, prosperous estate, with its fish hatcheries and vineyards, languished. He was permitted to keep and occupy his house, the nearby atelier and the park in which they were both located. He took it upon himself to start anew, and from that point on made his living only by painting. His Pictures of peasants were welcomed by the Marxist government because in them they saw support for their ideology of the rise of peasant-workers. Thus, Kunffy was transformed into a repository of so-called „progressive traditions" during the 1950s. In 1949 and in 1952 he had solo exhibits at Kaposvár and in 1953, together with Oszkár Glatz, he exhibited at the Ernst Museum. The old master was shown ever-increasing respect. For example, in 1955 the exhibition shared with Glatz was even taken to Beijing. In 1956 he had his own exhibition in the Rippl-Ronai Museum in Kaposvár. In 1958 his atelier was open to the public as a picture gallery named for him. He received the Decoration of Labor ( 1959) and was named Distinguished Artist with honors in 1960. The last great exhibition of his paintings during his lifetime took place at the Ernst Museum in 1960. He died in the hospital at Kaposvár on March 12, 1962, at the age of 93. His grave can be found bythe entrance to his altelier, a portrait of him in relief is on the gravestone. The government purchased his entire estate from his widow and in 1979 his manor house was declared a memorial museum. In it is furniture that belonged to him as well as his collection of paintings, representing his life's work. Visitors may see the manor house in its original setting at Somogytur, along the highway due sourth from Balatonlelle. Lajos Kunffy's total artistic output numbered about two thousand pieces. By far the most numerous are his oil paintings, but he also did pastels, drawings, aquarelles and oil sketches and even one or two pieces of sculpture. This number, unfortunately, includes pictures that were destroyed during the second World War or stolen since: about a thousand pieces, all told. His works can be found in Paris, Rome, Milan, Bucharest and Budapest. Most of his works, however, are in the hands of private collectors. A few hundred of his works are in private collections in Kaposvár. The largest collection onf 70