Passuth Krisztina – Szücs György – Gosztonyi Ferenc szerk.: Hungarian Fauves from Paris to Nagybánya 1904–1914 (A Magyar Nemzeti Galéria kiadványai 2006/1)
FROM PARIS TO NAGYBÁNYA - PÉTER MOLNOS: Budapest: The "Paris of the East" in the Hungarian Wilderness
József Rippl-Rónai: Portrait of Marcell Nemes, 1912 Ödön Rippl-Rónai Collection, Kaposvár Adolf Fényes: Portrait of Adolf Kohner Magyar Nemzeti Galéria, Budapest Henri Matisse: Guitariste cca. 1903 Once in the collection of Jenő Domokos Kees Van Dongen, Enfant en robe rouge, cca. 1908 Once in the collection of Marcell Nemes of the existing stylistic differences, because during the early days the word new was much more important in the assessment of new painting than the word painting: change itself was more important than the manner in which it took place. In studying the early history of modern Hungarian painting, in other words, the period around the turn of the century, we come to agree with Péter Hanák who wrote that "The most original and creative talents can be found in the ranks of the déclassé and marginalized gentry," while the urban bourgeoisie of mostly Jewish origin was the dominant social group supporting the new art. 35 But if we confined the scope of our study to the modern painters of the period in question, then we would find that during these more than ten years Jewish-born people were dominant not only among the supporters of modern art but also among the artists themselves. There are a variety of causes, and a specific answer to the problem would require a deeper and a more thorough study. What can be said with certitude, however, is that the liberal aspect of 19th-century Hungarian politics definitely contributed to Budapest's "Jewish Renaissance", along with the Jewry's spectacular acculturation and, even more importantly, their natural tendency to question and doubt, which Péter Hanák, with a reference to Thorstein Vehlen, described as "sceptical frame of mind". 36 When we look through the list of people who bought artworks by representatives of the most modern tendencies during the ten years beginning in 1905, we shall not find a single representative of Hungary's historical nobility; by contrast, the overwhelming majority in the list belonged to the assimilated Jewry of the towns and cities. 37 Although the list is painfully short, it is still not short enough to publish it in its entirety on these pages. However, it is important to point out that of the period's most important collectors, Marcell Nemes was the only one who bought works from the "Hungarian Fauves". He owned Czóbel's earlier mentioned portrait by Kernstok, for example. As for the other great collectors —Count Gyula Andrássy, Ferenc Hatvány and Adolf Kohner—, they were more daring in their selection, when it came to foreign artists, than they were in the case of the Hungarians. The most modern tendencies in the French section of Kohner's collection were represented by Braque, Modigliani and Matisse (he had bought one painting by the latter from Marcell Nemes in the early 1910s), while the Hungarian section comprised of a Kernstok from 1907 and a few major works by Rippl-Rónai. To the earlier mentioned international exhibition held at Művészház, Nemes lent four paintings by Picasso and two by Kees van Dongen, thus demonstrating that, in addition to being the greatest figure in the history of Hungarian private collections, he was also the one with the most modern taste. Evidently, the people who purchased works by the "Hungarian Fauves" and the future Nyolcak looked upon the transaction more as an act of donation and a form of art patronage, and therefore they could hardly be considered as purposeful collectors. One of them was József Lukács, Georg Lukács's father, who in all probability yielded to his son's power of persuasion, when he purchased Márffy's work at the Uránia exhibition in 1907, or when he acquired compositions by Berény and Kernstok at the 1911 exhibition of Nyolcak. 38 Géza Moskovitz's motives may have been similar, as his daughter, Anna Lesznai, took part in the Nyolcak exhibition just mentioned. From our perspective he was a very important person, as the Moskovitz house in Bálvány Street, Budapest —on the analogy of the mansion in Körtvélyes, and despite the owner's conservative nationalist political loyalties, which were only moderately tinted with liberal views —became one of the most popular meeting places of the modern generation of writers, sociologists and painters. 39 From Jászi to Ady, and from Dezső Orbán to Elek Petrovics, the future director of the Budapest Museum of Fine Arts, the crème-de-la-crème of the progressive intelligentsia regularly turned up in the house, enjoying the lively debates of a company of very heterogeneous political views, who were nevertheless always willing to listen to the arguments of others. The spontaneous formation of private circles on the analogy of the "Moskovitz house" played an important role in the rising popularity of modern social sciences and art, and new painting in specific, in Budapest. Paramount among them was the literary salon given by Mihály Pollacsek and his wife, the legendary "Tante Cecil". Although the salon had a much more radical character —one could almost say its basic outlook was socialist —, the company gathering here had a similar composition. The young generation gained admission mainly through the children of the couple, one of whom, Károly Polányi, was the first president of the Galileo Circle, before he became the editor of the magazine Szabadgondolat (Free Thought). Among the regular guests of "Tante Cecil's tea parties" were Georg Lukács and Ervin Szabó.
