Szatmári Gizella: Signs of Remembrance - Our Budapest (Budapest, 2005)
AK5ELI GALLEN-KALLEU FINN I CSTOr /VÉSZ AVNKÁSSÁGAT MAGYAR- ORSZÁGON iS JOL ISMERIK. ES NAGYRA BECSÜLIK- ORJZZI ■ nlÉK! j- (TL A KÖ A PiNN ES A A AGYAR NÉP TESTVEK! BARÁTSÁGÁNAK TANÜj ULE Rí: NT BUDAPEST FŐVÁROS TANÁCSA 10ÍS Our "painter relative" from Finland Fischer's studio on Fehérvári út. In 1908 Gallen had a single-artist exhibition in the Museum of Fine Arts, and the renowned collector Pál Majovszky bought some of his works, mostly his graphic prints. He made very good friends with members of the Gödöllő Colony of Artists Aladár Körösfői Kriesch and Sándor Nagy. With Majovszky he went on a longer trip to Kalotaszeg and Kőrösfő, where he showed off his skills at cross-country skiing amidst much hilarity. "Gallen immediately took to the people of Kalotaszeg, and in the environs of our town he thought he had discovered a likeness of Karjala," remembered architect Ede Thorockai Wigand, another member of the circle of friends. Knowing that Gallen designed (and even made) skis, Körösfői Kriesch asked the Finn to send him nine pairs, so that he and his family could go in for the new sporting fad. The artist was a great success in this country. The idea of Hungary and Finland being "relatives” made his monumental and decorative oil canvases and graphic prints of Art-Nouveau originality that much more popular. He made 72
