This year’s exhibitions of the Modern Gallery – László Vass Collection will also present important masters of the art of Szentendre. This year marks the 125th anniversary of the birth of Jenő Barcsay. He began his studies in the autumn of 1921, first in the class of János Vaszary and then Béla Rudnay at the Hungarian Academy of Fine Arts. After the Second World War, he was a member of the European School artists’ group in 1945-1948. A decisive change in his life came in 1945 when he was appointed professor of anatomy and visual theory at the Hungarian Academy of Fine Arts. He taught several generations of artists at the Budapest College until his retirement in 1975. Barcsay’s Anatomy, published in 1953, has become an international publication, translated into about 15 languages. He was awarded the Meritorious Artist Medal in 1964. In the summer of that year, he was a featured exhibitor at the Hungarian Pavilion of the 32nd Venice Biennale. The elderly artist’s last major exhibition was held in September 1982 at the Kunsthalle in Budapest. The presentation of his geometric-abstract, monochrome paintings was a great surprise to contemporary art critics. László Vass was among the first to recognise the importance of works from this period. The art collector had a close friendship and an ongoing professional relationship with Jenő Barcsay. The painter’s guidance helped the master shoemaker’s collecting activities to develop.
Barcsay’s late, minimalist works are the origins of the Modern Gallery – László Vass Collection, so it was a conscious choice to start the permanent exhibition with these works. The latest temporary selection from the collection is linked to these works and evokes the work of Barcsay’s pupil, Pál Deim. The Szentendre-born artist’s multi-faceted work includes paintings, sculptures and graphic works. His distinctive style is a conscious use of the individual character of form in geometric, non-figurative art. He created an artistic language influenced by both the constructivist – surrealist approach of Lajos Vajda and the constructivist painting of Jenő Barcsay.
Jenő Barcsay was Pál Deim’s anatomy teacher at the Academy of Fine Arts in Budapest. The relationship between master and student developed into friendship in later years in Szentendre. Barcsay’s personality was not only professionally decisive, the student recalled their intimate relationship as follows. Within these small possibilities, we must arrange the spatial and temporal ranges in such a way that our limited possibilities always have small windows through which the light of the world beyond our senses can penetrate. This ensures creation, this ensures the eternity of creation. For me, Jenő Barcsay, Uncle Jenő, the Master, represents this alignment with infinity.”