Nagy Ildikó szerk.: Rippl-Rónai József gyűjteményes kiállítása (A Magyar Nemzeti Galéria kiadványai 1998/1)

TANULMÁNYOK / ESSAYS - PANDCJR József: Rippl-Rónai Ödön (1865-1921)

about art amidst the works, trying to shape the views of his guests. Soon the home in High Street was too narrow. He found a bigger one of 16 rooms at no. 9 Rozsa street. On the door of his new home, he put up the sign: "Museum." He had time and patience to devote to the education of himself and others. He read much, got widely informed so as to become the intellectual partner of his brother. He inferred the conclusions from what he read and saw, and compiled wise slogans from them and printed them on his leaflet. He had the privilege of first viewing the new Rippl-Rónai works on Roma Hill and criticizing them. His brother needed his critical remarks. Ödön Rónai also continued collecting in Kaposvár. As an impecunious collector, he could only purchase cheap things, so he developed a peculiar method. He kept inquiring after works of art, visiting homes, wheedling objects he liked out of the hosts. He spared no effort and overcame all difficulties. He also collected at the market where he sought out the shepherd's carvings for sale. With these folk art objects and the drawings he got from József, he went to Budapest where he did trucking with artists. For the treasures he had brought, he received small pictures, sketches for monumental works. He had a special liking for young artists, seeing the great masters of the future in them. A greater part of his collection came from these fresh improvisations, sketches. He had no ambition to map schools of art, but grabbed at everything - old and new - that he deemed high-quality work. His collection can be reconstructed in broad outlines from notes, scribblings, inventory books. It included Renaissance masters, Baroque paintings, works by notable 19th century Hungarian artists. He liked the Nagybanya school and the works of the Eight produced at the beginning of the century, but he also had an eye for symbolist and secessionist attempts. He was in possession of more than a hundred Rippl-Rónai pictures. He cherished the painter's designs for his decorative art works. He obtained works from Sándor Galimberti and from Ferenc Martyn, who apprenticed with Rippl-Rónai. His favourite piece was a colour sketch made for Mihály Munkácsy's panno The Settlement of the Magyars. In 1913 he made an alphabetic list of his works of art and published a leaflet advertising his private museum. His solicitude for the collection and his caring effort to keep it together made him offer it to the soviet republic in 1919. With a contract signed on 30 August 1920, he bequeathed his collection of statues, pictures and ethnographic objects upon the county of Somogy under the reservation that the county should extend his collection, by purchasing from young Hungarian artists. The original copy of his last will and the list of objects have been lost. He also kept educating anyone, elucidating the Rippl-Rónai works to those who listened to him outside his museum rooms. He took on public tasks, too, organizing, for example, the famous Christmas Show in 1912 with the participation of the fourteen best-known Hungarian artists in Kaposvár. He acted as a museum attendant, or a guide, when needed. Ödön Rónai was also known in Kaposvár for his paintings. He dropped in at the cafe every day, where he quickly sketched the figures of his environment with the crayons he had got from his brother. He was fully aware that this modest performance was merely an instrument of communication, a chance to convince people, realizing that he was not in the mainstream but only on the periphery of art. On 1 January 1921, the brothers took stock of the collection and put their ideas to paper. After a cheerful conversation at the cafe, Ödön was taken ill. On 3 January, he died. Hard times befell the collection, and it took a long time for the stock of 1355 items to be inventoried and displayed duly. The war years and the subsequent thoughtless selection decimated the bequest. The extant pieces of Ödön Rónai's collection can now be found in the Rippl-Rónai Museum in Kaposvár and in the Villa Róma reconstructed in spring 1997.