Julius Podlipny

Julius or Iulius Podlipny (most common renditions of the Czech: Julius Podlipný; Slovak: Július Podlipný; Hungarian: Podlipny Gyula; Romanian: Iuliu Podlipny; April 12, 1898–1991) was an Austro-Hungarian-born Czechoslovak and Romanian artist, best known for his work in drawing and his long period as teacher at the Art Lyceum in Timişoara. First acknowledged as a promoter of modern art during the interwar period, Podlipny was a contributor to the avant-garde and socialist magazine Ma, edited by Hungarian critic and promoter Lajos Kassák.

Having adopted a style which echoed Expressionism, he influenced Romanian art mainly as a pedagogue: among the critically-acclaimed contemporary painters to have been inspired by his views is Ştefan Câlţia. Podlipny's widow, Annemarie Podlipny-Hehn, is an art and literary critic. Part of her research is dedicated to her husband's artistic contributions.

Biography

Of Czech origin, Podlipny was born in Pressburg, Austria-Hungary (today Bratislava, Slovakia). During the early 1920s, he studied at the Hungarian Art Academy in Budapest, which saw him joining the Central European modern art movement. In 1926, he moved to Timişoara, which had become part of the Romanian Kingdom upon the end of World War I.

In Timişoara, where he taught draftsmanship, Podlipny led the Free School of Painting before joining the teaching staff at the Decorative Art School (later restructured as the Art Lyceum). During the following period, he was associated with Hungarian-language avant-garde magazine Ma, published in Vienna by the socialist artist Kassák. Literary critics Cornel Ungureanu and Paul Cernat note that the links created between Ma and the Bucharest-based magazine Contimporanul, centered on the friendship between their two editors (Kassák and Ion Vinea), may also have involved a loose group of Timişoarans. Alongside Podlipny, they were ethnic Romanian politico Aurel Buteanu and German poet and anarchist activist Robert Reiter, together with the Hungarian writers Rodion Markovits and Károly Endre. Like many in the avant-garde environment, Podlipny also became known for his left-wing and socialist sympathies. Occasionally, historian Victor Neumann writes, Podlipny supported causes associated with the far left.

After the establishment of the Romanian communist regime, and especially in the 1960s and '70s, Julius Podlipny focused on his work as an educator, helping to create a distinct and critically-acclaimed artistic trend among Banat youth, and creating a bridge between early modern art and post-World War II tendencies. In the 1950s, he married Annemarie Hehn. The daughter of middle-class Swabian parents, she had been a displaced person during the final stage of the war, before being employed as an art historian for the Banat Museum. An amateur artist herself, she met her future husband through her two sisters, who took lessons in drawing from Podlipny. In 2008, she recalled: "following my marriage and through my work at the Banat Museum art section, I 'submerged' myself in the field of fine arts, and thus I could more easily bear the communist dictatorship." One of her two sisters, Ilse Hehn-Guzun, also became a noted artist.

Podlipny contributed significantly to the artistic development of his students. According to Neumann: "He was [...] a person with formative knowledge, some of the best-received Romanian artists being indebted to his school." The latter category, Neumann indicates, was primarily illustrated by Ştefan Câlţia. Podlipny was also the teacher of Roman Cotoşman, Paul Neagu, Dietrich Sayler, Traian Brădean and Constantin Flondor. Remembered as a tenacious artist, Podlipny also had to struggle with a disability: one of his arms had been amputated.

Several texts by Annemarie Podlipny-Hehn, including a monograph, deal with her husband's work and its context. Discussing these writings, Cornel Ungureanu writes: "To understand the Austro-Hungarian empire with its left-wing movements, to understand the crepuscular art of Central Europe, Mrs. Podlipny shows, is impossible unless we carefully follow the evolution of esteemed Timoşoarans, among whom the most important one in her studies is still Julius Podlipny." In 1998, Podlipny was posthumously granted the title of honorary citizen of Timişoara. A street in the city was renamed in his honor.

Style and influence

Podlipny's style was developed under the influence of Central European currents. Writer Livius Ciocârlie, who was active on Timişoara's cultural scene at the same time as Cotoşman, and who was an acquaintance of Podlipny, describes the latter as "an interesting Expressionist".

His approach to art and his views on life had a sizable impact on his pupils' careers. In particular, Neumann writes, the artist made himself known for imposing a disciplined approach to art, and for familiarizing young artists with mixed media techniques. Ştefan Câlţia credits Podlipny and Corneliu Baba with having instilled in him a "respect for school" that replaced his initial "rather nonconformist" approach to art training. He also recalled Podlipny telling his students that "the most important thing we have been given is the total freedom of expression." Constantin Flondor, who was Podlipny's student between 1950 and 1954, remembers being influenced by his "simple, clear and unshakable" pronouncements on artistic matters, such as: "Art requires an abandonment, a self-sacrifice. Taking your place in front of a sheet or a canvass which promises the meeting between a piece of vine charcoal or a brush and the white surface is a moment charged with the thrills of genesis. Nothing and no one has the right to disturb one who is in the sacred moment of labor." Livius Ciocârlie also notes that, although Podlipny "spoke a very corrupted form of Romanian [...], any phrase he had uttered became memorable."

Ciocârlie, who writes that Podlipny was often "intransigent" and "sarcastic", also recounts the teacher's contempt for painting as opposed to drawing and graphics. He argues: "to him, colorists were a finical bunch lacking in energy, incapable of tracing a single line." According to Victir Neumann, Julius Podlipny had a rather tense relationship with Cotoşman, who, in 1966, created the nucleus of what became the underground avant-garde venue known as Grupul Sigma. Neumann notes that this might not have been a singular situation, and that Podlipny may have likely been seen as "too demanding" by several other of his pupils.