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VESZELSZKY, Béla
Veszelszky, Béla
painter
(24 July, 1905, Budapest - 12 Jan. 1977, Budapest)
1924–1929: College of Hungarian Fine Arts, master: Oszkár Glatz. Through György Kepes he became acquainted, in the 1920’s, with the Kassák Work-Group and Ferenc Kepes. In 1930 he spent a half-year in Vienna, then traveled to Berlin in 1932. From 1933 to 1956 he made a living from different fields of work (art teacher, draughtsman, fee collector, workman). From 1956 he dealt solely with painting. From his first productive period, following his college studios (circa 1930-1942) only three paintings endured (His workshop was destroyed during the storming of Budapest in 1944.). These remaining works, and the recollection of his contemporaries make it quite likely that Veszelszky, during this period, produced works using the point technique typical of his works. Due to the observed point technique and seeming abstraction found in his early works, emerges the categorization of abstract expressionism and the analogy of the works of J. Pollock. Though he was in close relation with the young painters of the Work-Group (Kepes, Dezső Korniss, Sándor Trauner, Lajos Vajda), the greatest intellectual influence on his works was received not from the Kassák Group, but the neo-Gnostic group, the meetings of which he visited regularly, following even the years of the Second World War. He developed his painting technique as a result of the influence of the philosophical teachings of Henrik Jenő Schmitt and his apprentice Ferenc Kepes, pertaining to the general dimensional relation of gnosis, the related space awareness, and point-like units, which constitute reality, having little to do thus with either the nonfigurative tendencies of the time, or to the pointillist divisionism of Seurat. He stopped producing art for a period of nine years, and only continued his painting career, which he was forced to abandon involuntarily, in 1953. It was around this time that his second grandiose period, consisting of overlapping themes, began, which may be split up into thematic, interconnecting periods that lasted up until his death. Between 1953 and 1964 he produced portraits of children and still-life pieces (so-called “Pitcher, Mug” settings), landscapes between 1957 and 1965 (the backbones of his life-work; the pieces of his “Pusztaszeri úti panorama” /The panorama of Pusztaszeri Street/ series), and finally from 1965 to 1976 portraits, self-portraits and his “Filodendron és Kukorica” /Philodendron and Corn/ landscapes. The graphical periods consisting of aquarelles, pencil and pen drawings (Ádám és Éva /Adam and Eve/ carpet-plan 1929.1931, and Küzdő Ádám /Struggling Adam/, which he began at the end of the 1920’s and continued up to the end of his career, furthermore the so-called “Kakasos” /Rooster-like/ ornaments (1956-1957 and 1976) are also of outstanding significance. It is pivotal, in understanding of the life work of Veszelszky, to keep in mind that he was not a nonfigurative artist. He continued painting nature when the motifs of the canvas almost dissolved into the point structure, due to which their thematic identification became seemingly difficult. Veszelszky was guided by the intention of grasping exact reality in the truest manner possible through painting, thus often evoking the work of Cézanne. His point structure, therefore, in contrast to the generally recondite paradigm characteristic of the art of the 1950’s and 1960’s, does not divide or engulf, but rather reveals the motifs, during the course of their formation. His lifeworks, produced in total isolation, and seen only by a close group of understanding friends, only received some publicity around the middle of the 1960’s. His works appeared from time to time at the exhibitions held by the at times banned, other times tolerated new avant-garde movements. A revelation of his work, worthy of their bearing, only came at the one-man shows following his death (in 1978 and 1986). These proved that, in his workshop, he produced such a timely version of 20th century “reality painting”, which is capable of illustrating a possible expansion of the Cézanne-ian intention.
One-Man Shows:
1964 • Studio exhibition with Tibor Csiky, at the home of Pál Petri-Galla, Budapest
1978 • King Saint Stephen Museum, Székesfehérvár (HU) • Lajos Hatvany Museum, Hatvan (HU) (cat.)
1986 • Museum Kiscell (cat.) • ~'s aquarelles, Géza Gárdonyi Museum, Eger (HU) • Porin Taidem., Pori (cat.)
1987 • Struggling Adam, Óbuda Cellar Gallery, Budapest
1997 • Műcsarnok, Budapest (cat.).
Selected Group Exhibitions:
1962 • Modern Architecture - Modern Art, ”Építők Klubja”, Budapest
1968 • Budapest University of Technology – Vásárhelyi-Hall
1971 • Material and Form in Art, TIT Studio, Budapest
1972 • Hungarian Art. The Twentieth Century Avant-garde, Bloomington (USA)
1977 • Hungarian Art, 1945-1975, House of Culture, Warsaw
1979 • Settimana Ungherese a Firenze, Salone Brunelleschiano presso l'Instituto degli Innocenti, Firenze
1981 • The Fifties, Csók Gallery, Székesfehérvár (HU)
1983 • New Art 1960-1975, Béla Bartók Community Centre and Ferenc Móra Museum, Szeged (HU)
1987 • Old and New Avant-garde (1967-1975). Hungarian Art in the Twentieth Century, Csók Gallery, Székesfehérvár (HU)
1989 • Meisterwerke der Ungarischen Moderne, Schloss Plankenwarth bei Graz (A)
1991 • The Sixties. New Tendencies in Hungarian Art, Hungarian National Gallery, Budapest
1996 • 1956 and the Art – Spring Exhibition, Műcsarnok, Budapest.
Works in Public Collections:
Balassa Museum, Esztergom (HU)
Municipal Picture Gallery, Budapest
Lajos Hatvany Museum, Hatvan (HU)
King Saint Stephen Museum, Székesfehérvár (HU)
Janus Pannonius Museum, Pécs (HU)
Hungarian National Gallery, Budapest
Town Gallery – Deák Collection , Székesfehérvár (HU).
Bibliography:
Films:
