Gyula Rudnay Exhibition

The Ernst Museum is organizing an exhibition of Gyula Rudnay's work in honour of the 125th anniversary of his birth this year. With this exhibition we will recall a by now almost forgotten oeuvre, all the more pertinent since the artist introduced himself and his work in this building in 1918. The last exhibition of Rudnay's work was at the Hungarian National Gallery in 1969.

The strength of Rudnay's pictures lie in colour; he composes with colour: flame red and luminous white, tragic black and warm brown patches form dancing peasants, revelling gypsies, the despairing crowd fleeing the war. Presumably Munkácsy was the great predecessor and role model, but the dynamic movement, the momentum, the rhythm are the artist's own as he finds his independent voice, as are the portraits and portrait-like figurative works, which are in reality "depictions" of emotion.

The canvasses containing numerous figures refer back to Hungarian "antecedents". They are filled with Biedermeier ladies and highwaymen on horseback, groups at table feasting and chatting from the pre 1848 world of the County Court judge. Memories of childhood and youth come to life; the frequent guests and wayfarers at the family house live on through the artist's imagination. A kind of slightly historicizing view, going beyond realism or rising above it, recalls Hungarian Biedermeier or rather, the reform era.

Most of Rudnay's landscapes are characterized not by the precise representation of reality, but by the Arcadian purity, which grows more refined in its timelessness.

The works in the exhibition were selected primarily from museum collections, but a few distinguished works in private ownership will also be on show. Some lively, effortless, delicate watercolours and family and other photographs complete the material to be viewed, together with a few of the numerous decorations and medals awarded in recognition of the artist's rich oeuvre.