William Penn Life, 2010 (45. évfolyam, 1-12. szám)
2010-09-01 / 9. szám
Hungarian-born sisters Elena and Bertha de Hellebranth gained notoriety by painting portraits of famous subjects, such as Dwight D. Eisenhower and Jonas Salk, but little is known about these accomplished artists. By Patricia L. Fazekas 9® 'Ú 14 September 2010 William Penn Lite any visitors to the Museum of the American Hungarian Foundation have enjoyed its exhibits from individual artists, art collections and other museums, but few people are aware that the Foundation has its own museum collection. In fact, the Foundation has been a collecting institution since its earliest days, receiving its first oil painting, a landscape by Charles Harsanyi, in 1955. This piece was a very important one, since it helped to shape the collection's focus on the work of artists who were born in Hungary and at one time worked in America, had significant careers here, or created works on American themes. Many of these Hungarian artists came to America in the 20th century, some between the two world wars, with others following after the Hungarian Revolution of 1956. The museum is concentrating its efforts on collecting works by these artists. It is, as far as I know, the only museum to do so. Some artists of Hungarian birth or descent whose works are included in the museum collection are Stevan Dohanos, Joseph Csatári, László Ispanky, Balázs Szabó, Joseph Petrovics, Joseph and Evelyn Dómján and Béla Horváth, to name just a few. The largest body of museum collection material in this category was created by Elena and Bertha de Hellebranth, two charming and talented Hungarian sisters who took the American art world by storm when they settled here in the 1930s. They were well-known in New York and New Jersey for their sculpture and paintings, particularly for their portraits and religious art. Their sister-in-law, Emilie de Hellebranth, left nearly 200 pieces of the sisters' work to the American Hungarian Foundation in her will in 2001. About 50 pieces of the collection were exhibited in the museum in 2002 and 2003 in the exhibition "From the Old World to the New World - Recent Additions to the Museum Collection." While Bertha and Elena were very accomplished artists, having exhibited in such famous venues as the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C., the Brooklyn Museum, the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Art and the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City, not much has been written about them. The little information we have has been gathered from newspaper articles and exhibit applications from various museums. The Hellebranth sisters were refined and talented women who surprisingly were able to make art their sole occupation for their entire lives. Neither woman married nor had any children. Their story, while not unique, is not the typical Hungarian immigrant experience. Born in Budapest, Elena in 1897 and Bertha in 1899, the Hellebranth sisters came from a cultured upper-class fam-
