A Veszprém Megyei Múzeumok Közleményei 24. (Veszprém, 2006)

Gopcsa Katalin: Adatok Egry József fiatalkori munkásságához

3 HORVÁTH 1959 4 SZÍJ 1968 5 SZÍJ 1978. 158. 6 LÁNCZ 1963; SZÍJ 1968; SZÍJ 1972; SZÍJ 1978 7 EGRY BREV. 1973.98-101. 8 OSZK. Q.H. 3438, Q.H. 3897. 9 LÁNCZ 1980. 42. 10 SZABÓ 1974 11 LÁNCZ 1980.42. 12 GOPCSA 2002. 68-69. 13 LÁNCZ 1963; SZÍJ 1968; SZÍJ 1972; SZÍJ 1978; LÁNCZ 1980 The Egry József Memorial Museum in Badacsony was rebuilt and enlarged in 2002. This Memorial Museum belongs to the Museum Directorate of Veszprém County. This museum is open intermittently from May till October, and it presents József Egry's (1883-1951) more than 50 works. We can follow József Egry's life-work from the early years started in 1903, through his main works painted during the decades that he spent next to Lake Balaton, till the works produced in the last period of his life. The Collection of Fine Arts and the Documentation Department of Art History of Laczkó Dezső Museum of Veszprém were increased with a significant number of drawings and documentaries about the painter last year, and these documents complete the material that got into the museum earlier from the inheritance of one of Egry's acquaintances. Béla Horváth was an art historian dealing with József Egry's life-work as well. He collected a lot of materials about Egry, which were given to the museum by his widow after his death. This collection mainly gives new information about Egry's juvenile work with the help of some unknown works that have never been published. The drawings of character figures, the war postcards, the ex libris, the lithographs and posters that have never been published, all present the juvenile work of the painter from a new point of view. Egry 14 EGRY BREV. 1973. 112. 15 EGRY BREV. 1973. 114. 16 KASSÁK 1942.66. 17 SZÍJ 1978.465. 18 MŰVÉSZET 1914/8.421. 19 közölve: LÁNCZ 1965. 283.; LÁNCZ 1980. 51. 20 FODOR-SZABÓ 1980. 35. 21 közölve még: GOPCSA 2005. 71. kép 22 BÁLINT 1918 23 Bakó Zsuzsa (Magyar Nemzeti Galéria) közlése 24 EGRY BREV 1973. 94-96. 25 SZÍJ 1978. 159. attended official artist training institutions only for a short time, he rather acquired the knowledge of the art of painting in museums and by self-education. During these years of study, that he called „years of obscure agonies" in his biography, extremely various artistic forms and thematic diversity characterised him. He made caricatures for satirical papers of the beginning of the century, with the aim of living. We can notice the relation between these drawings and his paintings from the same period: he was interested in the worker figures of Meunier-format, and the life of the residents of the suburbs and the penniless. Egry painted many self-portraits during his life-work, and he liked presenting the painters during working. Among the new purchases of the museum, one of the most noticeable things is a notebook of 51 pages full of sketches and notes. This notebook was used by Egry during his study-tour to Paris in 1905 and 1906. Besides the works that are in the collection of the museum the essay presents some other works that were made in the same period, but now they can be found in the collections of private collectors. These also prove that Egry made many formal attempts in various directions to find the possibilities of means of expressions that are suitable for him, the motifs that are the best to express his message. He found these in representing Lake Balaton after he settled down there. FACTS ABOUT EGRY'S JUVENILE WORK 234