Adam Biro - Lővei Pál szerk.: Biró József emlékkiállítása (Kiállítási katalógusok Budapest, 1991)

Life and Career of József Biró

József Biró was born in Nagyvárad (presently Oradea, Rumania) on 8lh July 1907. His father, Márk Biró, was a teacher of geography, history and the German language at the local Jewish orthodox higher elementary school. A man of classical education and at home both in the social- and natural sciences he later became director of the institution that he eventually developed into an orthodox grammer-school. After 1918, this became one of the Hungarian intellectual centers at Nagyvárad. The mother, Mária Hirschler, was decendent of a family native in the town for many hundred years. József Biró went to school at Nagyvárad. First he attended the Premontratensian grammer-school, later when that was dissolved he joined the 6th form of the Jewish grammer, where he passed his final examinations. From an early age on he showed interest in drawing and painting. His art teacher at the premontratensian grammer, the painter Ignác Ödön Udvardy (1887—1961) recognized his talent and as he himself worked at the artists colony in Nagybánya (Baia Mare, Rumania) he arranged for Biró to study there with János Thorma during the summer holidays following his 7th year at the grammer-school. A signed sketch-book from 1924 with the portraits of the masters and art students is a surviving proof of his participation just as his name registered among the students of the year 1925. It was at Nagybánya that he got acquainted with István Réti who encouraged and helped him to, after finishing his secondary education at Nagyvárad, become a student of the Fine Art Academy in Budapest in 1925. He attended Red's class but was likewise impressed by the works of Gyula Rudnay and János Vaszary and also by the personality of his art history professor Károly Lyka. It was the latter, who urged him to register at the Faculty of Arts as a student of the history of art. He completed his university studies in the department of Prof. Tibor Gerevich with a thesis written in 1932 on the baroque and neo-classical art monuments in Nagyvárad. It was published under the same title with financial support from the bishop of Nagyvárad. His book, ,,Modern Graphology", written during his university studies and still sought after today, is a further proof of the wide-range interest of his intellect. The book was revised and edited a second time and Biró is known by members of his family and colleagues to have carried on his research in this field later in his career, too. After finishing his studies he returned to Nagyvárad where he was elected librarian to the Museum of the Archeological and Art Historian Society of the County of Bihar and Nagyvárad. He also catalogued the 30.000 volume family library of Count Miklós Bánffy at his country home in Bonchida. Later on he became director of the Teleki Library, the so called Teleki-téka in Marosvásárhely (Tîrgu Mures, Rumania), and remained so until 1939, actually living in the town between 1937 and 1939. He travelled across Transylvania studying the heritage of catholic churches of the baroque period and also paying thorough attention to the secular architecture, especially to manor houses and town palaces of that period. His first articles where published in Transylvania but soon they started to appear in the Budapest edited ,, Archaeologiai Értesítő" showing his good relationship with the Head of the second History of Art Department, Antal Hekler, who was also editor of this periodical. His books were published by Singer and Wolfner and by the publishing house Officina. His writings were partly illustrated by his own photographs, drawings and place-measurement ground plans. Troughout his career Biró was strongly attached to Károly Lyka and Tibor Gerevich — memorial volumes dedicated to them all contain articles by him. On the other hand, due to his field of interest, he kept contact with Antal Hekler, János Kapossy and Elemér Révhelyi who were the first to deal thoroughly with baroque art in Hungary. The rich data of his publications and his almost positivist-like handling of archival material — his attempt to detect and publish as much of the sources as possible — shows him to be close in opinion to Lajos Kelemen. This approach of Biró sometimes provoked the criticism of those colleagues who were deciples of the then fashionable trend of comperative studies in the history of ideas. Many of his writings discuss monuments in Transylvania, especially the manor houses of the region, a sector that had not, before Biró, been dealt with by specialists. The most distinguished families of Transylvanian nobility, the Bánffys, Telekis and Toldalaghis invited him to their homes and gave his research their total support, thus expressing their acknowledgement of Biró's abilities and knowledge. His study of sources regarding Transylvanian churches and manor houses is fundamental and his works on the manor houses and art in general in Transylvania remain unsurpassed in Hungary today. In 1940 and 1943 he published program-studies concerning monument protection in Transylvania. His last manuscript on the history of the ,,Transylvanin Gubernium" was lost at the end of the war. In his works József Biró took a strong stand by an objective, historically based Transylvanian art historiography. He offered data in opposition to the theories of Coriolan Petranu, professor of History of Art at the Kolozsvár (Cluj, Rumania) University and those of his students who were clearly inspired by nationalism. At the same time he acknowledged all worthy achievments of the Rumanian art historians between the world wars and called the attention of Hungarian collègues to them, pointing out the importance of becoming acquainted with these works. Taking advantage of his knowledge of the Rumanian language he communicated the results of Rumanian researchers to Hungary. At the same time he reviewed new Hungarian publications in Transylvanian magazines. In 1944 he moved to Budapest, where he died at the zenith of his career. On January 6, 1945, he and his father were killed by Hungarian nazis, in front of the building of the Hungarian Acadamy of Sciences. Pál Lővei Translation: Sélysette Somorjai