Zwickl András szerk.: Árkádia tájain, Szőnyi István és köre 1918–1928. (A Magyar Nemzeti Galéria kiadványai 2001/3)

TANULMÁNYOK - ANDRÁS ZWICKL: The Pictures of the Ideal and the Real - The Arcadia Painting of the Szőnyi Circle

Károly Patkó moved into the Városmajor Street studio of Róbert Berény, who had been forced to emigrate after the fall of the Council Republic.

27 Before the War, Aba-Novák and Patkó enrolled in a teacher training course at the Academy of Fine Arts, instead of the artist training course that Szőnyi and Korb took. When they came home from the War, they enrolled in Olgyai's newly organised class. In the art of Károly Patkó the CuboExrpessionism of the 191 Os was tinted with inspirations of old art, primarily of late Renaissance and Mannerism. Similarly to Szőnyi, he paid two visits to Nagybánya, first in the Summer of 1913, and then again in the next year, still before beginning his Academy studies. After 1922 Patkó, along with Aba-Novák, resumed his studies at the Academy of Fine Arts in Olgyai's class. Aba-Novák, who was the same age as Szőnyi, first started to paint in 191 3 at the Szolnok artists' colony under Adolf Fényes, rather than under the Academy teachers or the Nagybánya masters. After the War, with his teacher's certificate in his pocket, Aba-Novák obtained a position at the Drawing Department of the Budapest Technical University. Then he went back to the Academy of Fine Arts to continue his art education in Olgyai's first class in the academic year of 1921-1922. By that time, however, he had produced a large number of works, both as a painter and as a graphic artist. The Ernst Museum's group exhibition in September 1922 provided him with the first opportunity to show his d

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awings and etchings to the public.

28 Unlike Szőnyi who was primarily influenced by the old art and the Nagybánya painters, Aba-Novák drew heavily from the heritage of the "isms". The young artists, some still studying and some just starting out in their careers, had ample opportunity to show their works to the public very early on. With the previous generation of artists emigrating en masse, Szőnyi and his friends were able to fill a vacuum. Just as in Szőnyi's case, who was able to show his works to the public already in 1919, his contemporaries first tried to get into the major exhibitions in the Palace of Art, before turning towards two much more open institutes, the National Salon and the Ernst Museum. After 1920 the young Neo-Classicist artists regularly participated in the National Salon's exhibitions, and the same year saw Szőnyi presenting a large collection of his graphical works as part of the Autumn Show.'" The institute's program would not allow Szőnyi's generation to stage individual or very limited group exhibitions, so - mainly after the mid-1 920s - they had to rely on special occasions, such as exhibitions held by artists' organisations, to make a thorough impact.

30 Ernst Museum offered them a much broader scope; its main profile - series of group exhibitions of varying composition - occasionally allowed some artists the chance to have individual exhibitions.

3 In addition, the two institutions undertook the task of exhibiting works by the Academy of Fine Arts' students. Olgyai's students also exhibited in those short-lived galleries that played such a prominent role in popularising the actual tendencies during the first half of the 1920s. Most members of the etching generation regularly took part in the graphical exhibitions held in 1922 and 1923 at the Auróra art dealership, the Alkotás Artists House and the Helikon Gallery.''' Besides graphical works, Belvedere also showed extensive collections of paintings and sculptures by individual artists: that was how Károly Patkó's exhibition came about, among others, in 19222'

: The majority of Olgyai's pupils also worked as painters (for example, Nándor Lajos Varga, Jenő Tarjáni Simkovics), but - in compliance with the period's demands - they usually showed their giaphical works as those were easier to sell, and only a few of them had a chance to show their paintings. Belvedere gave a chance to several artists until October 1 924, when - last of the small galleries - it also went out of business.

34 Very few of the previous generation of progressive artists remained in Hungary. The younger generation usually got to know them either through the exhibitions held by the small galleries or through their graphical work (for example, Imre Szobotka, János Kmetty). The artists adhering to various styles formed a new organisation in 1924, which filled a generation gap between the "elders" of the Szinyei Society and the Szőnyi circle. This organisation represented a considerably more open and more vigorous attitude than the Szinyei Society/ did. KUT (short for Képzőművészek Uj Társasága - New Society of Artists) organised its first exhibition in Ernst Museum in May of the same year, in which Szőnyi took part as a regular member and AbaNovák as an invited artists. Therefore, the Szőnyi circle's NeoClassicism was well within the organisation's multicoloured profile, even though by that time certain changes, certain moves towards a more colourful and more relaxed painterliness had been noticeable in the Szőnyi group's art. For them the year 1924 was momentous for other reasons, also. In January Szőnyi held his second retrospective exhibition, this time taking up all the rooms in the Ernst Museum, while Aba-Novák and Palkó showed a large volume of their works to the public as part of a group exhibition in October. Szőnyi got married and moved out to Zebegény, embarking on a long journey in Italy still in the same year. Erzsébet Korb also took a study trip in Italy in the Spring, which sadly came to be the closing period of her oeuvre, as she