Ödön Márffy

Márffy's grave in Budapest

Ödön Márffy (born November 30, 1878 in Budapest , Austria-Hungary , † December 3, 1959 there ) was a Hungarian painter and graphic artist . He was a member of the artist groups MIÉNK , the eight and the New Society of Visual Artists ( KUT ). His painting style is related to the Fauves , later the École de Paris .

Life and activity

After a short training in Hungary, Márffy went to Paris in 1902 on a grant from the Metropolitan Council to study. At first he was a student of Jean Paul Laurens at the Académie Julian , but during the year he enrolled at the École des Beaux-Arts in the class of Fernand Cormon , where he spent four years. Here he came into contact with painting students who were enthusiastic about modern trends. Through her he learned to paint from Paul Cézanne , Vincent van Gogh and Pierre Bonnard as well as Henri Matisse and the Fauves . In Paris he made friends with some members of the later group " The Eight ": Béla Czóbel , Róbert Berény and Bertalan Pór ; here he met the poet Endre Ady and also the composer Béla Bartók .

In the last year of his stay in France, he exhibited for the first time in 1906 at the Salon d'Automne ; on this occasion he was elected a member of the Union International des Beaux-Arts et des Lettres that year.

Fauve epoch

In autumn 1906 he returned to Budapest and exhibited together with Lajos Gulácsy . Thanks to this exhibition he won the “Franz Joseph Coronation Anniversary Prize”. With the prize money he went on study trips to Italy and Dalmatia.

Márffy spent the summer of 1908 in the garden of Károly Kernstok in Neudorf an der Donau , where they developed their fawn style. He was a founding member of the first artist organization, the MIÉNK (Magyar Impressionisták és Naturalisták Köre - Circle of Hungarian Impressionists and Naturalists), later he took part in the founding of the group eight.

The eight

The Hungarian (mainly Budapest) savages emerged at the end of 1909 from the group "MIÉNK". The main character of the first Hungarian avant-garde group called "The Eight" was Kernstok. At her first exhibition "New Pictures", Márffy's painting "Bathing Women" caused outrage among conservative critics. Márffy's painting style changed constantly over the next few years. Márffy said goodbye to the exaggerated Fauvist style in favor of a strict compositional order. As a member of the Eight, he took part in the exhibitions of the Berlin Secession in 1910, the “Kölner Sonderbund ” in 1912 and the “ Wiener Künstlerhaus ”, which presented works by Hungarian painters. During the First World War he served as a war painter and took part in the exhibitions of the war press headquarters in Budapest, Vienna and Berlin.

Csinszka era

In 1906, Márffy made friends with the poet Endre Ady in Paris. In 1920 he married his widow, Berta Boncza (1894-1934), whom Ady had called Csinszka in his poems. A productive period followed with many portrayals of her. He exhibited regularly in Hungary and abroad. In 1924 he was a founding member and from 1927 president of the KUT (New Society of Visual Artists) for ten years. In 1928 he flew to the United States and exhibited in Washington and New York . In 1933 he had an individual collective exhibition at the Heinemann gallery in Munich . Numerous works by him can be found in American and European private collections.

Late work

After the Second World War he joined the work of the European School. In 1948 he married Franciska Hacker, 40 years his junior. Failed to adapt to Socialist Realism in the 1950s , it was reset. After 1956 he was rehabilitated; a year before his death, in 1958, the Ernst Museum in Budapest paid tribute to the 80-year-old painter with a retrospective.

style

His early works were post-impressionist, later he turned to Fauvism. From 1906 he became one of the most prominent representatives of the Hungarian savages. During the times of Gruppe Die Acht his pictures showed a stricter compositional order. In 1914 he met Oskar Kokoschka . After this encounter, his style approached Expressionism. After marrying Csinszka, his expression softened. The color scheme brightened up again after the expressive phase and became softer, his style more decorative and related to the essence of the École de Paris. His most popular painterly subject during this decade was his wife and family environment, which is why this period became known as the "Csinszka Period". Otherwise he mainly painted landscapes and portraits.

Exhibitions

• 1910: Exhibition of Hungarian painters , Berlin
• 1912: International art exhibition of the Sonderbund Westdeutscher Kunstfreunde und Künstler , Städtische Ausstellunghalle, Cologne
• 1914: XXXIX. Annual exhibition , Künstlerhaus Vienna
• 2003: Márffy and his muses , Ernst Museum, Budapest
• 2010: The other Csinszka. The muse of Ödön Márffy , Modem, Debrecen
• 2010: color, light, shine. Commemorative exhibition by Ödön Márffy , Kogart House, Budapest
• 2010/11: Márffy and Csinszka. The painting by Ödön Márffy between the world wars , Vaszary House, Balatonfüred

literature

• Zoltán Rockenbauer: Márffy, Ödön . In: General Artist Lexicon . The visual artists of all times and peoples (AKL). Volume 87, de Gruyter, Berlin 2015, ISBN 978-3-11-023253-0 , p. 192 f.
• Ödön Márffy . In: Hans Vollmer (Hrsg.): General Lexicon of Fine Artists of the XX. Century. tape 3 : K-P . EA Seemann, Leipzig 1956, p. 324 .
• Ödön Márffy . In: Hans Vollmer (Hrsg.): General Lexicon of Fine Artists of the XX. Century. tape 6 , supplements H-Z . EA Seemann, Leipzig 1962, p. 249 .
• Rockenbauer, Zoltán: Márffy, Ödön . In: Hans Vollmer (Hrsg.): General lexicon of fine artists from antiquity to the present . Founded by Ulrich Thieme and Felix Becker . tape 24 : Mandere – Möhl . EA Seemann, Leipzig 1930, p. 87 .
• Pátzay Pál: Ödön von Márffy. Paul Gordon Verlag, Berlin 1928
• Krisztina Passuth : Márffy Ödön. Corvina, Budapest 1978.
• Zoltán Rockenbauer: Márffy. Catalog raisonné. Makláry Artworks, Budapest / Paris 2006. ISBN 963-229-967-1
• Zoltán Rockenbauer: A Másik Csinszka / The Other Csinszka. Muse of Ödön Márffy. Modem, Debrecen 2010, ISBN 978-963-88439-5-1
• Skirt maker Zoltán: Márffy és Csinszka. Márffy Ödön festészete a két világháború között. Balatonfüred, 2010, ISBN 978-963-13-5779-0
• Zoltán Rockenbauer: La period fauve d'Ödön Márffy et ses rélations avec le Fauvisme français. In: Les migrations fauves. La diffusion du fauvisme et des expressionnismes en Europe centrale et orientale . EUD, Dijon 2012, pp. 21-27.
• Gergely Barki, Evelyn Benesch, Zoltán Rockenbauer: The eight. A Nyolcak. Hungary's Highway to Modernity. Deutscher Kunstverlag, Vienna 2012, ISBN 978-3-422-07157-5
• Gergely Barki, Zoltán Rockenbauer: The Eight - The Act. Exhibition catalog. Balassi Institute, Budapest 2012, ISBN 978-963-89583-4-1

Web links

Commons : Ödön Márffy  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

1. ^ Zoltán Rockenbauer: Márffy Ödön tanulóévei (years of study of Ödön Márffy) (1902–1906) . In: Ars Hungarica , 33. 2005, pp. 109–140 (PDF file; 880 kB)
2. ^ Zoltán Rockenbauer: The Fauves by the Danube, or Could Nyergesújfalu Have been Hungary's Collioure? . In: Hungarian Fauves from Paris to Nagybánya. 1904-1914 . Hungarian National Gallery, Budapest 2006, pp. 125-132.
3. ^ Zoltán Rockenbauer: The Other Csinszka. Muse of Ödön Márffy. In: A másik Csinszka . Modem, Debrecen 2010. pp. 13-19.
4. ^ Carlyle Burrows: News and Exhibitions of the week , The New York Herald Tribune, April 29, 1928
5. ^ Munich, Galerie Heinemann: collective exhibition Ödön v. Márffy, 2. – 16. February 1933.
6. ^ Zoltán Rockenbauer: Pleasure of Perception. The painting of Ödön Márffy between the First and the Second World War. In: Márffy és Csinszka. Márffy Ödön festészete a két világháború között . Ed. Judit Kállói Judit, Vaszary Villa, Balatonfüred 2010, pp. 24–37.