Passuth Krisztina – Szücs György – Gosztonyi Ferenc szerk.: Hungarian Fauves from Paris to Nagybánya 1904–1914 (A Magyar Nemzeti Galéria kiadványai 2006/1)

HUNGARIAN FAUVES CASE STUDIES - GERGELY BARKI: The Evolution of Czóbel's Fauvism in the Mirror of his Early Portraits

he and Károly draw together, sometimes using Baby [Kernstok's son

— Béla Horváth's note] as a model, and at other times anybody else who is at hand," Mrs Kernstok wrote about Czóbel one week before his exhibition at Galerie Weill.

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' In Hungarian literature, the painter's first one man show is barely mentioned. Although the exhibition was actually held in March 1908, in Hungarian literature the year is almost invariably given as 1907." In his monograph on Fauvism, Gaston Diehl gives the correct date, 1908,

73 but the clearest proof comes from the 25 February, 1908 issue of the Hungarian paper, Népszava. The brief report not only gives the correct date, it also serves with some additional information of some interest: "Béla Czóbel, one of the most talented members of the young generation of Hungarian painters living in Paris, opens his collective exhibition on March 6 in Weil's [sic!]

74 art dealership on Rue Victor Museé [sic! correctly: Massé], which is the regular venue for modern French painters. Approximately 30 oil paintings and 30 to 40 drawings will be shown to the public."

75 March 1908 is the date that Berthe Weill herself gave in her autobiography.

76 Talking about the exhibition, Weill pointed out that it had brought considerable moral success to Czóbel. She regarded Czóbel as a talented painter, who followed the teachings of Matisse's academy.

77 It is rather strange that Czóbel remembered the date of the exhibition incorrectly, although he was still able to reveal important details about it. "At Weill, there was no catalogue, only an invitation card. In 1907, Weill was a small gallery. I exhibited numerous works I had made at Nyerges. Stoki [Kernstok] invited me to Nyerges. I exhibited landscapes and figurai compositions."

78 It was at this exhibition that Czobel managed to sell one of the centrepieces of his oeuvre, Man with a Straw Hat,

79 although we do not know the name of the first owner. Later on the composition was owned by Jean-Pierre Moueix, the well-known wine producer and art collector,

80 before it changed hands again, ending up in the possession of its present owner in Chicago. The portrait, which has not been shown in Hungary for decades, poses numerous questions to researchers. For one thing, in my opinion the dating of the composition is doubtful. Another important task would be to establish the identity of the sitter. Although there has been a universal agreement among researchers about 1906 being the date of the painting's completion, we have no actual source to back up the theory. We have already shown that this painting was not included in the material sent to the 1906 Salon d'Automne, but we have still not been able to exclude the possibility that it had been made immediately before it, during that rebellious summer at Nagybánya. Judging from the stylistic marks, it reveals closer similarity with Painters Outdoors, a painting that was definitely made there and then, although the brushwork seems more daring, as well as showing a greater freedom of spirit. In this composition, Czóbel already left larger areas of the canvas's ground white, while his palette was nearly unchanged and the homogeneous patches of colours giowed with deeper hues and were more extensive, losing the PointilI

ist character of the earlier works. The contours failed to resemble those used by either the Art Nouveau artist, or the Nabis, or Van Gogh. The unmixed and glowing colours filled the areas enclosed by the contours much more loosely. At the same time, Czobel employed a new technique in this composition. Using spontaneous, calligraphic brush movement, he shaded in the flat surfaces that he had outlined with the contours. This nonchalant spontaneity, which was one of the most important trademarks of Fauvism, characterized the works Czobel painted in Nyergesújfalu in the summer of 1907 (Boys Seated, Courtyard in Nyerges). We can still not claim with absolute certainty that the portrait was made in 1907 at Nyergesújfalu, possibly depicting a local vineyard owner. Some researchers may argue that it was completed in 1906, portraying a Nagybánya farmer;

81 convincing as either of these two proposals may seem, there exists a third hypothesis. Although the painting's current owner has already written it down in the catalogue of Czóbel's exhibition in Chicago that Czóbel had painted a portrait of Adolphe Basler, he failed to make it clear that Man with a Straw Hat actually depicted Basler.

82 Quite independently from Mr. Johnson, I have come to the conclusion that the physiognomic similarity permitted such an assumption, even though we have no definite proof. The painter's statement, whereby "my portraits usually depict my friends,"

83 unfortunately cannot be regarded as sufficient evidence for the hypothesis. Researchers worldwide have described Czobel as a "Dômier". In other words, he was an important member of a group of

—mostly Germanspeaking

—artists who regularly met in Café du Dôme,

84 being on especially good terms with two other Jewish painters, Walter Bondy and Rudolph Levy.

85 The art critic and art dealer Adolphe Basler, also of 27. Albert Marquet: Silhouette of Jacqueline Marval, cca. 1901 Musée de Peinture et de Sculpture, Grenoble