Kunffy Lajos: Visszaemlékezéseim, 2006

LAJOS DE KUNFFY - REMEMBRANCES BY CHARLES DE KUNFFY (I would like to be identified as the author of these reminiscences in the published book.) I am one of the grandchildren of the artist's brother. As children, we looked forward to the visits of my great-uncle lajos when he came to our home in Castle Fácánkert every summer. He loved my parents. As my grandfather Karoly de Kunffy died young, in 1916, Lajos felt like a substitute father to my own father, who was named Lajos after him. Their affection was mutual. He loved my mother for her great beauty, and even more for her art as a sculptress. They talked about fine arts to the deep satisfaction of both. Lajos de Kunffy was the finest representative of that great truly liberal tradition that came to an apogee in „La Belle Epoque." That was when rationalism triumphed, scientific advances gave hope and optimism, and technological progress enabled comfort and prosperity to spread to evergreater segments of the population. Progress was based on evidence, truth, facts and not yet corrupted by constructs of crude ideologies based on fantasies and lies. Then, starting in 1914, european civilization committed suicide and was replaced by cultures of hatred and envy that resulted in wasted lives, cruelty, suffering and bloodbaths. Lajos remained rooted in the civilization he was born into but which perished in his lifetime. He never compromised his values or altered his character. He lived without pretensions, never flaunting his wealth but displaying only the great treasures of his art and of his mind. He lived a life of kindness, remaining generous and charitable even when eventually robbed of his wealth and social position by Nazi and Communist predators. He lived for a while in Munich, Paris, and Budapest, and at his home on his country estates in Somogytur. While living in Paris from 1898 to 1914, Lajos and his wife became close friends of Clemenceau, who became President of France and was nicknamed „The Tiger" for his ferocious stand against the defeated powers in 1918. In Paris the de Kunffys moved in the best society of artists, politicians and the artistocracy They traveled to North Africa, Italy and Germany. Lajos was deeply in love with his wife, Ella Tiller, who came from a wealthy Viennese family. Her wit, charm and beauty were legendary. A family anecdote tells of a time when Ella was a young lady. Someone came to her home in Vienna and asked to see „Herr Consul", her illustrious and wealthy father. She responded, „Napoleon was Herr Consul. My Father is the Herr General Consul." Insisting charmingly and impishly on ranking her father above Napoleon, humorously acknowledging the title-conscious era of Viennese society. 264