Oil on canvas; 130.5 x 133 cm.
Born in Kecskemét, Hungary, Adolf Fényes was one of his country’s most distinguished Jewish painters. The motifs of his works can be considered a metonym for the struggle to create a Hungarian Jewish identity, particularly during the decades immediately before and following World War I.
The son of the rabbi of Kecskemét, Fényes attended a law program in Budapest. Before completing law school, however, he enrolled at the Mintarajziskola, a leading Budapest institute of design, and was taught by Bertalan Székely between 1884 and 1887. Fényes then studied for three years in Weimar with Max Thedy, and spent a year at the Julien Academy in Paris. He embraced the naturalist style and quickly emerged as one of the most significant painters of the Nagybánya school. In the spring of 1894, he exhibited two paintings, Nagyapó (Grandpa) and Thüringiai paraszt (Thuringian Peasant). That year he returned to Hungary and joined the Benczúr School of the Arts. He won the first of many prizes for Pletyka (Whisperer, or Gossip).
In 1898, Fényes left the Benczúr School and helped found the Szolnok artist’s colony. After 1900, he entered perhaps his most productive, diverse, and prestigious period, turning to a more impressionist style, and painting workers and poor people in broad impressionist renderings with dark colors. In 1900, he won the Paris Exhibition Prize for the impressionist-style Család (Family). His naturalist painting Civódás (Spat) won the Rudics Prize in 1901, while Öreg Ember (Old Man) earned him the Lipótváros Casino Prize. In 1905, his major works were shown at the National Gallery in Budapest. In 1907, he helped found Miénk, the Assembly of Hungarian Impressionists and Naturalists, and exhibited with them in 1908.
After 1903, Fényes used more color in his work, notably in his paintings of small-town streets; this style is apparent in his Small-town Stillness and Saint Andrew Street, which he painted in 1905. He also opted for a simpler style, as expressed in several portraits from around 1907: Baron Adolf Kohner and Sarbo Leo. Between 1911 and 1914, Fényes produced still-life pictures in striking colors, such as Village Flowers, Peasant Still-life and paintings of the interiors of churches and homes, including The Cathedral of Szolnol and The Serbian Church in Buda.
Before World War I, Fényes showed little attachment to Jewish subjects. During and after the war, however, he began adapting themes from the Bible. Between 1915 and 1918, he painted Noah’s Ark, The Jews Defeat the Army of Amalek, Abraham and the Angels and Moses Draws Water from a Stone. By the end of the 1920s, Fényes’ artistic career was nearing its end. Along with other Hungarian Jews, he faced increasingly harsh restrictions imposed by the antisemitic Horthy government that impeded his ability to paint. Interned in a forced labor camp in the 1930s, Fényes died of starvation at the close of World War II. He is thus one of countless Hungarian Jewish cultural figures who epitomize the rapid deterioration of Hungarian Jewry after World War II.
