Barki Gergely et al.: Czóbel. A French Hungarian painter - ArtMill publications 5. (Szentendre, 2014)

Gergely Barki: Czóbel from Paris to Paris 1903-1925

43. Béla Czóbel: In the Park (Landscape), 1905. Kecskemét, József Katona Museum, not on exhibition

At that exhibition of more than one thousand paintings, Czóbel, with his pictures of modern tuning, came to the attention of the international (if not the Hungarian) press. An unnamed journalist wrote in the Future [Jövendő] periodical the following: “Here was an especially great success by Béla Czóbel, whom all the large French papers mention with great esteem. Hence, the Paris edition of the New York Herald instantly includes him among the most interesting people and recommends that amateurs pay attention to Czóbel’s portraits, which they consider the dernier crie [sic!] of modern endeavours.”16 In the very same paper, a few pages earlier, György Bölöni reports on Czóbel’s success in a similar vein. Directly after his analysis of the works by Fauves (Manguin, Puy, Friesz and Dufy, as well as Matisse’s Bonheur de Vivre), he continues his coverage of the exhibition: “Without the prompting of any nationalist sentiment, I must absolutely induct into the front ranks a young Hungarian painter: Béla Czóbel. His eight pictures constitute the substrata of modernist endeavours. He draws easily with a rough hand, brutally squeezing the character out of his models and their faces. Besides this, he is a great colourist, whose hand gives rise to bold colour harmonies in

16 [n.a.]: “Magyar művészek sikere Párizsban [Hungarian Artists’ Success in Paris]”, Jövendő [Future], June 1906, 4:3, p 55. Az Utak I, p 155.

CZÓBEL FROM PARIS TO PARIS, 1903-1925

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