Rippl-Rónai: An Oeuvre Combining Post-Impressionism and Art Nouveau

Hungary Today 2023.10.18.

Self-Portrait in a brown hat (1897)

On October 18, the Day of Hungarian Painting, the exhibition Rippl-Rónai under the Spell of Colors (A Színek Bűvöletében) will open in Kaposvár (southwestern Hungary), in the Rippl-Rónai Memorial House and Visitor Center. The exhibition features around ninety paintings by the painter and graphic artist, reports Magyar Nemzet.

The museum that bears the name of József Rippl-Rónai presents a typical work from each of his periods in a new temporary exhibition of works from the collections of eight Hungarian museums.

The highlight is the double portrait My Parents after Forty Years of Marriage (1897), with which the young artist paid tribute to his beloved parents. Visitors will also be able to admire Nude on a Terrace (1908), a rare Impressionist work in Rippl’s oeuvre, which is significant for its vibrant light and shade, the emblematic, bourgeois Lajos and Ödön (1918), as well as Breakfast Table, and Still Life with a Mask (1910), among others.

The Rippl-Rónai Memorial House and Visitor Center. Photo via Wikipedia

Fact

József Rippl-Rónai (1861 – 1927) was a Hungarian painter. He was the first to introduce modern artistic movements into Hungarian art. He was born in Kaposvár. After his high school studies there, the artist went to study in Budapest, where he obtained a degree in pharmacology. In 1884, he traveled to Munich to study painting. Two years later he obtained a grant which enabled him to move to Paris and study with Mihály Munkácsy, the most important Hungarian realist painter. Later he returned to Hungary, and eventually had a very successful exhibition entitled “Rippl-Rónai Impressions 1890-1900.” He believed that for an artist not only is his body of work significant, but also his general modus vivendi, even including the clothes he wore. The painter thus became interested in design, leading to commissions such as the dining room and the entire furnishings of the Andrássy palace. Between 1911 and 1913, his exhibitions in Frankfurt, Munich, and Vienna were highly successful. His last major work, a portrait of his friend Zorka, was painted in 1919, and in 1927, he died in Kaposvár.

The aim of the exhibition, open until December 10, is to familiarize visitors to the Somogy County seat with Rippl-Rónai’s paintings in other county institutions and to draw attention to the value of Rippl-Rónai and his prominent place in the canon of Hungarian art.

My Father and Piacsek, with Red Wine (1907). Photo via Wikipedia

The villa on the hill in Kaposvár, where the artist lived and worked until his death, has been a memorial museum since 1978. This is also due to the fact that Róbert Martyn, one of Rippl-Rónai’s adopted sons, preserved the original furnishings and relics of the building, while the painter’s brother, the art collector Ödön Rippl-Rónai, and the experts of the Kaposvár museum have created a significant collection of Rippl-Rónai paintings over several decades.

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Via Magyar Nemzet, Featured image via Wikipedia