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 - PARIS - GERGELY BARKI: From the Julian Academy to Matisse's Free School
25. Vilmos Perlrott Csaba: Fragment of a nude composition (Verso of the painting Still-life with Desktop Clock [Cat. No. 208]), cca. 1910 At Matisse's school, the only "stable" Hungarian students were Géza Bornemisza and Vilmos Perlrott Csaba. 37 Together with József Brummer, they attended the school almost from the start, 38 while Valéria Dénes, Erzsi Fejérváry and Márta Ferenczy 39 could have arrived later. There were also people who visited Matisse's studio occasionally, which was possible to do on a certain day of the week. 40 The other name that is mentioned with relative frequency by art historians as a Hungarian Matisse-student is Róbert Berény's. 41 Despite the fact that about ten oil paintings and as many as 60 graphics dated from 1907 by the "wildest" Hungarian, whose art showed the greatest resemblance to Matisse's works, have been discovered (most of them in the last few years), we do not know any of his paintings made in Paris in the year 1908. 42 For lack of solid evidence in the form of works and documents, the most we can at the moment assume is that Berény occasionally visited Matisse's school. Although he never actually became a painter, Leo Popper, the philosopher Georg Lukács's friend who had also spent some time at Nagybánya, was probably 43 also among those who occasionally turned up at the Matisse Academy to study drawing. 44 (Fig. 20) At variance with the monographers' opinion, several Hungarian researchers mention Béla Czóbel among Matisse's students. 45 The suggestion, which at the moment still cannot be verified, 46 also pops up elsewhere in the international literature. The notion may have been put into circulation by Berthe Weill, who organized an individual exhibition for Czóbel only three months after the opening of Matisse's school. 47 It is more likely, however, that Czóbel never studied under Matisse, in view of the fact that neither he nor any of the "stable" Hungarian Matisse-students made any suggestions to that effect. In contrast with the relatively large number of surviving compositions by Matisse's German, Scandinavian and American students, a disappointingly small number of works by his Hungarian pupils is known to 26. Géza Bornemisza in the company of his painter friends, cca. 1909 Archive photograph have survived the nearly one hundred years that passed since then. Two or three works by Vilmos Perlrott Csaba are all that we now have as mementoes. In the background of Perlrott's nude paintings held in Kaposvár (Fig. 18, Cat. No. 204) and Pécs (Fig. 22, Cat. No. 205), respectively, we can spot a number of motifs that also pop up in compositions by other Matisse-students, proving that Perlrott did, indeed, paint these compositions in Matisse's school. 48 In the background of an identically arranged composition by Einar Jolins, Matisse's Norwegian student, we can discover the same objects. 49 (Fig. 13) The framed tableau in green passe-partout, 50 which is shown in the Kaposvár painting, also turns up in the background of a nude by another "Matissare" (the nickname given to Matisse's Scandinavian pupils), Jean Heiberg 51 (Fig. 19), as well as in the German painter Mathilde Vollmoeller's Male Nude 52 (Fig. 17) and Arvid Fougstedt's drawing depicting a group of Matisse's students. 53 (Fig. 21) In the background of Perlrott's nude study held in Pécs, we see another motif that can serve as a clue in identifying the location: the red frame dividing the window into four sections also appears in Ludvig Karsten's Nude Standing 54 (Fig. 23) painted in the same year, as well as in Hans Purmann's Nude Study. 55 (Fig. 24) Although it is not a nude painting, Perlrott's Woman with Black Hair probably portrayed a nude model and could easily have been made in Matisse's school, along with the fragment of nude studies, which is on the verso of Perlrott's painting entitled Still-life with a Desktop Clock. (Fig. 25, Cat. No. 208) Although no nude paintings made in Matisse's school have survived by Géza Bornemisza, Matisse's other Hungarian student, we do know an archive photograph taken at the painter's home in Nagybánya, which shows an evidently earlier nude study in oil in the background. 56 (Fig. 26) Sitting next to Bornemisza, we see András Mikola and presumably József Brummer, 57 two of his fellow students at Delécluse Academy on rue Notre-Dame-des-Champs at that particular time. 58 In an interview, Bornemisza told Béla Horváth that he actually found a job there for Brummer to work as a model; Brummer eventually became a famous
