Gyula Batthyány ( Ikervár, 10 May 1887 – Budapest, 20 January 1959) was a Hungarian painter and graphic artist whose works are in the collection of the

Hungarian National Gallery The Hungarian National Gallery (also known as Magyar Nemzeti Galéria, ), was established in 1957 as the national art museum. It is located in Buda Castle in Budapest, Hungary. Its collections cover Hungarian art in all genres, including the w ...

as well as other museums around the world.

Early life

His father is Count Lajos Batthyány, governor of

Fiume Rijeka (; Fiume ( �fjuːme in Italian and in Fiuman Venetian) is the principal seaport and the third-largest city in Croatia. It is located in Primorje-Gorski Kotar County on Kvarner Bay, an inlet of the Adriatic Sea and in 2021 had a po ...

, member of parliament, and his mother is Count

Ilona Andrássy Countess Ilona Andrássy de Csíkszentkirály et Krasznahorka (21 May 1858 – 2 April 1952) was a Hungarian people, Hungarian noblewoman, wife of Lajos Batthyány (governor), Count Lajos Batthyány de Németújvár (1860–1951) who served as Li ...

. He is the great-grandson of Count

Lajos Batthyány Count Lajos Batthyány de Németújvár (; ; 10 February 1807 – 6 October 1849) was the first Prime Minister of Hungary. He was born in Pozsony (modern-day Bratislava) on 10 February 1807, and was executed by firing squad in Pest, Hungary, Pe ...

, the first Hungarian Prime Minister. In 1890, when he was barely three years old, he made his first drawing. He began his education at the

Hungarian Academy of Fine Arts The Hungarian University of Fine Arts (Hungarian language, Hungarian: , MKE) is the central Hungary, Hungarian art school in Budapest, Andrássy Avenue. It was founded in 1871 as the Hungarian Royal Drawing School ''(Magyar Királyi Mintarajztan ...

studying under

János Vaszary János Miklós Vaszary (30 November 1867 – 19 April 1939) was a Hungarian painter and graphic artist. Biography He was born into a prominent Catholic family in Kaposvár. His uncle was Kolos Ferenc Vaszary, the Archbishop of Esztergom. His ar ...

, later going to

Munich Munich is the capital and most populous city of Bavaria, Germany. As of 30 November 2024, its population was 1,604,384, making it the third-largest city in Germany after Berlin and Hamburg. Munich is the largest city in Germany that is no ...

in 1907 to work with Angelo Jank. He studied at The

Académie Julian The () was a private art school for painting and sculpture founded in Paris, France, in 1867 by French painter and teacher Rodolphe Julian (1839–1907). The school was active from 1868 through 1968. It remained famous for the number and qual ...

in Paris from 1910 to 1913 where he became friends with

Léon Bakst Léon (Lev) Samoylovich Bakst (), born Leyb-Khaim Izrailevich Rosenberg (; – 27 December 1924),

. Only a year after Paris, his paintings would be exhibited at the Ernst Museum in

Budapest Budapest is the Capital city, capital and List of cities and towns of Hungary, most populous city of Hungary. It is the List of cities in the European Union by population within city limits, tenth-largest city in the European Union by popul ...

Career

In 1914 he had an exhibition together with Beck Ö. Fülöp in the Ernst Museum. His works were regularly displayed in the Art Gallery and the National Salon between 1921 and 1938. In 1922, he established an artist colony in

Bicske Bicske (; or ) is a town in Fejér County, Hungary. It is around west of Budapest. Its administration has undergone many changes; it has been a settlement, a village, a market town, and a village constituting an administrative division. History ...

, where he lived at that time. From the 1920s, he started designing theater decorations under the influence of

Sergei Diaghilev Sergei Pavlovich Diaghilev ( ; rus, Серге́й Па́влович Дя́гилев, , sʲɪrˈɡʲej ˈpavləvʲɪdʑ ˈdʲæɡʲɪlʲɪf; 19 August 1929), also known as Serge Diaghilev, was a Russian art critic, patron, ballet impresario an ...

's set designer, Leonid Bakszt.

Other art

In addition to painting, he was a well-known theater set and costume

designer A designer is a person who plans the form or structure of something before it is made, by preparing drawings or plans. In practice, anyone who creates tangible or intangible objects, products, processes, laws, games, graphics, services, or exper ...

, and also created numerous book illustrations. His series of Hungarian historical drawings were reproduced and published in an album. As a graphic artist, he also illustrated the works of

Ferenc Herczeg Ferenc Herczeg (born ''Franz Herzog'', 22 September 1863 in Versec, Kingdom of Hungary, Austrian Empire – 24 February 1954 in Budapest, Hungary) was a Hungarian playwright and author who promoted conservative nationalist opinion in his cou ...

and Cécile Tormay. His painting can be related to late

Art Nouveau Art Nouveau ( ; ; ), Jugendstil and Sezessionstil in German, is an international style of art, architecture, and applied art, especially the decorative arts. It was often inspired by natural forms such as the sinuous curves of plants and ...

, his pictures are characterized by gracefully elongated figures and satirical representation. He often chose glittering, aristocratic social scenes as the subject of his paintings. He uniquely portrayed luxurious pleasure girls, elegant gentlemen, gangsters, the posing, theatrical, hollow characters of the aristocratic milieu full of sultry eroticism. In addition to Daumier, his elongated figures also remind us of

El Greco Doménikos Theotokópoulos (, ; 1 October 1541 7 April 1614), most widely known as El Greco (; "The Greek"), was a Greek painter, sculptor and architect of the Spanish Renaissance, regarded as one of the greatest artists of all time. ...

's manneristic undulating depictions of people. His works are often dream-like, energetically swirling organic forms form an integral part of their design world. Its decorativeness shows affinities with the illustration of

surrealism Surrealism is an art movement, art and cultural movement that developed in Europe in the aftermath of World War I in which artists aimed to allow the unconscious mind to express itself, often resulting in the depiction of illogical or dreamlike s ...

and

Art Deco Art Deco, short for the French (), is a style of visual arts, architecture, and product design that first Art Deco in Paris, appeared in Paris in the 1910s just before World War I and flourished in the United States and Europe during the 1920 ...

Personal life

A known opponent of

national socialist Nazism (), formally named National Socialism (NS; , ), is the far-right totalitarian socio-political ideology and practices associated with Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party (NSDAP) in Germany. During Hitler's rise to power, it was frequen ...

s, he was sentenced to eight years in prison for political reasons in 1952. He spent five years in prison in Márianosztra, and his property was confiscated. After his release, he lived in retirement in Polgárdi in the apartment of his former officer until his death. His more significant works are kept by the

Awards

* 1916: silver medal, San Francisco * 1930: silver medal, Barcelona * 1934: gold medal, Paris * 1937: bronze medal at the World Exhibition in Paris

References

1887 births 1959 deaths 20th-century Hungarian painters 20th-century Hungarian male artists Gyula Hungarian male painters Hungarian graphic artists {{Hungary-painter-stub