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 - GYÖRGY SZÜCS: Nagybánya, a Regional Centre

Béla Czóbel: Village Street, 1906. Cat. No. 109. Zazar, an area populated by miners. "This is already Hostánc and Veresvíz, the two painter districts, the Quartier-Latin of Nagybánya," János Szablya, one of the leaders of the artists' group KÉVE, recalled.

10 In Nagybánya, just as in any other city, the most important scenes of social life were the cafés and the restaurants. The most "visible", and also the most visited, restaurant of Nagybánya was the one located in the town's park, underneath the tall lime trees, where Thorma and his friends regularly sat and chatted away over their wines at the white tables, while Hollósy took charge of the Gypsy band until the small hours, and where the local notability threw receptions for the guests arriving from the capital on some special occasions. The restaurant had the added assets of being located near to the painters' school and coming complete with a large garden, implying that the painters were en plein air even when they were not painting... In 1909, Gyula Rumpold, the owner of a café set up in the Hotel Central situated on the corner of the main square, spotted the great potentials that this venue was offering: after leasing out and modernizing the restaurant, he opened it to the general public.

11 A much more important development came in 1906, when a separate coffee room was added to Patisserie Gyön-