Painter and Model (in atelier)

1904 · Magyar Nemzeti Galéria, Budapest

other

In addition to producing brilliantly coloured plein-air paintings of subjects basking in sunshine, at Nagybánya Ferenczy also worked inside his studio, producing works of more restrained colouration. This particular work made in 1904, was the first in the series of nude paintings, which took up most of his attention in his last creative period. The theme of Ferenczy's "snapshot", which was actually carefully composed, was a painter instructing his model how to pose: with palette in his hand, the artist directs the nude model how to sit on the armrest of a chair.

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About the Artist

Károly Ferenczy

1862 – 1917

Hungarian painter. It was not before completing his law studies and graduating from the College of Economy that Ferenczy took up painting, primarily as a result of his future wife's influence. After travelling in Italy, he began studying at the Julian Academy in Paris in 1887. In 1889 be moved to Szentendre, a small town near Budapest, and painted in naturalistic style showing the influence of Bastien-Lepage. Between 1893 and 1896 he lived in Munich with his family. There he joined the circle of Simon Hollósy with whom he moved to Nagybánya in 1896 and became the leading figure of the artist colony established in that small Transylvanian town. Of the Nagybánya painters representing plein-air painting, he was the first to have great success in 1903, when his paintings were exhibited in Budapest. After 1906 he moved to Budapest and became a professor a the School of Drawing the predecessor of the College of Fine Arts, spending only the summers at Nagybánya. During his last creative period he mostly painted decorative pictures of nudes. Ferenczy had three children, his son Valér (1885-1954), painter and graphic artist, and the twins Béni (1890-1967), painter and graphic artist and Noémi (1890-1957), a painter who established tapestry in Hungary.

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