János Vaszary (Kaposvár 1867 - Budapest 1939) - Lot 208

János Vaszary (Kaposvár 1867 - Budapest 1939) János Vaszary was a Hungarian painter born in Kaposvár in 1867 into a family of scholars. His uncle, Kolos Ferenc Vaszary (1832-1915), was Archbishop of Esztergom and later Cardinal. Between 1884 and 1887, János Vaszary trained at the Budapest Academy of Fine Arts with Bertalan Székely (1835-1910), Gusztáv Keleti (1834-1902) and Alajos Stróbl (1856- 1926), before continuing his apprenticeship at the Munich Academy from 1887 to 1888. In 1889, like many Hungarian artists, János Vaszary moved to Paris. He enrolled at the Académie Julian under the tutelage of professors Adolphe William Bouguereau (1825-1905) and Tony Robert-Fleury (1837-1911). In 1891, he took a trip to Rome with his uncle Kolos Vaszary, portraying the latter in accordance with the realist codes of the time. At the very end of the 19th century, the painter excelled in a Symbolist style; the painting "The Golden Age", kept in the Hungarian National Gallery under inventory number 1614, is one of the most famous examples of this period. In 1894, the painter painted one of his most famous pictures in Paris, Woman in a Black Hat, now in the Hungarian National Gallery under inventory number FK8084. Profoundly imbued with the art of the Nabis, the painter demonstrated a talent for color and excellence in the pictorial translation of light. The work of Paul Cézanne had a considerable influence on his style in the 1910s, as evidenced by the work "Bathers" dating from 1911 and conserved at the Hungarian National Gallery under inventory number 58.208T. During the First World War, János Vaszary took part in the correspondence on the Serbian front and transcribed the reality of the conflict through his sketches. From then on, his works took on a more dramatic aspect, with a darker chromatic palette. After the war, the painter returned to the artistic scene with brightly colored canvases depicting seashores, Mediterranean landscapes and scenes of daily life. János Vaszary played an active role in the artistic life of his time. He taught at the Budapest Academy of Fine Arts from 1920 until 1932, and helped found the "New Society of Artists" in 1924. His style of the 1930s shows a strong assimilation of the French avant-gardes and reveals an understanding of the work of Henri Matisse (1869-1954) and Raoul Dufy (1877-1953), as revealed by works held at the Hungarian National Gallery in Budapest such as "Hotel by the Sea" (inventory no. 2017.16T) and "Boatmen on the Shore" (inventory no. 2017.18T). János Vaszary took an active part in the artistic life of his time, participating in the 1898 Paris World Exhibition, and holding solo exhibitions in 1919, 1924, 1930, 1935 and 1937 at the Ernst Múzeum in Budapest. To this day, the Hungarian National Gallery in Budapest holds an important collection of János Vaszary's works. János Vaszary died at the age of 72 in 1939 in Budapest, Hungary.