Gopcsa Katalin: A Sümegi Művésztelep (1919-1931) és kortárs képzőművészek paletta kiállítása (Veszprém, 2006)

Kálmán Darnay's Collection of Palettes A onetime ironmonger, archaeologist, museologist, author of specialist works, man of letters, patron of the arts, "cultural miscellanist," the polymath of Sümeg, ardent collector, royal government counsellor, and later larger-than-life figure of popular lore, Kálmán Darnay had wide acquaintances. He knew Jókai and Mikszáth, engaged in conversations in coffee houses with Gárdonyi and Ady, corresponded with Margit Kaffka, János Istók, and Rippl-Rónai, but he was also visited in Sümeg by Kálmán Csathó and Ferenc Herczeg. Among his friends were Károly Eötvös, and it was also Darnay who took under his wings Erzsébet Sass Brunner, who would later setde in India, and her painter daughter. His endearing personality and diverse activities made Sümeg one of the cultural hubs of the Transdanubian region of Hungary. Moreover, he planned to set up an artists' colony in Sümeg modelled after, and even "substituting," the Nagybánya colony. The July 12, 1925 issue of Sümegi Újság featured an article entided "Mark the date: July 12, 1925," referring to the day that would be deemed as crucial concerning the establishment of a permanent colony. The cause of the artists' colony was supported by the secretary of the minister of education, the Cultural Society of Transdanubia, and the enthusiastic local authorities of Sümeg, and the idea was also backed personally by István Csók, then rector of the Academy of Fine Arts, and by his successor, Oszkár Glatz. The plan was impressive: building in Sümeg, by the hillside full of vineyards, on the Haraszt, an artists' colony with studios, exhibition rooms and a boarding house providing accommodation to the artists. As the twenty-nine remaining palettes given as gifts to Darnay testify, it was in 1925 when attendance peaked at the summer artists' colony in Sümeg. However, painters had already visited Sümeg while on holiday and had painted there, frequently organizing exhibitions of their works created there at the Main Secondary School for Sciences, at the Boarding School for Girls or in the banqueting hall of the Civic Society. The people who had visited the small town prior to the arrival of painters apprentices in 1924 and 1925, and before the college apprentices of Rudnay and Csók