Barki Gergely et al.: Czóbel. A French Hungarian painter - ArtMill publications 5. (Szentendre, 2014)
Mimi Kratochwill: Béla Czóbel's mature period, 1925-1976
319. Art historian Lajos Németh is opening Czóbel’s 1971 life work exhibition in the Műcsarnok (Art Hall). Private collection In autumn 1972 I was able to accompany him to the opening of his exhibition in the Parisian Galerie René Drouet, where his daughter, Lisa, also joined us from Hamburg. The great success and recognition of the artist was demonstrated by the army of guests at the opening ceremony. Although he could only walk with great difficulty, his days were, nevertheless, filled with events. Every day I would accompany him to his exhibition, where he received his friends. We were welcomed as guests in various friends’ homes, and one evening we went to an expensive performance at the Folies Bergére revue theatre, owned by Czóbel’s old acquaintance, Michel Gyarmati. Czóbel refused to accept the limitations and infirmity of his age and in the evenings he invited me out to a dinner at the Dome or the Coupole. He met his elderly friend, the painter André Dunoyer de Segonzac, and they would reminisce about the old times. They were so engrossed in conversation that they were not at all disturbed by the photographs taken of the meeting (Plate 310). This trip to Paris charged him with energy and he continued in his studio the works he had started to paint with renewed vigour, since he was already making preparations for his exhibition at the Ernst Museum to mark his ninetieth birthday, where he only exhibited his new pictures, including works that had just been taken off the easel (Lovers, Double Portrait). Czóbel himself wrote the text for the invitation: “The paintings that have been now exhibited were finished only recently, in 1972-1973, in an attempt to recapture my youth, when I set off for Paris 70 years ago. The 70 years in which I lived were perhaps the most eventful and productive periods in the history of art, only to later become degenerated into today’s enervation, decadence, geometry. 192 CZÓBEL, A FRENCH HUNGARIAN PAINTER
