External exhibitions on site

28 November 2024 - 28 February 2025.

István Szőnyi has visited Italy several times. First in the early 1920s on a study trip, then in 1929, with a Hungarian state scholarship in Rome, from where, lacking creative energy, he returned home after four months to Zebegény, a small village on the Danube. In 1959, on his last trip to Rome, he took up his brush for the first time to capture the harmony of the coastal and hilltop towns around Rome, composed in the landscape, which he considered to be masterpieces even greater than the Roman palazzos. Szőnyi's mature art focused on the landscape and the man working in perfect harmony with it, painting the Danube Valley, the landscape of Zebegény and village life for over thirty years. In his paintings he depicted an idealised, idealised reality based on the view. In the last year of his life, while visiting his daughter Zsuzsa in Rome, he took great pleasure in making gouache sketches, which he would use to paint panels on his return home. During their excursions, Szőnyi would often stop, look for the scenery and start painting, the family would wait, and many photos would be taken. Szőnyi's favourite place is the beach. The water, the harbours, the infinity. He makes a lot of paintings and sketches, his gouaches are masterpieces in themselves, works of art in their own right. He works in various techniques, and on his return home he also makes etchings from some of his drawings. He works on a theme he likes several times, experimenting, looking for the most appropriate technique for the message. The exhibition is an imprint of these last experiments, of his thoughts on the landscape and the people who live in it, and their role in shaping it, through works in etching, ink and pen and ink drawing, gouache and tempera, and is a fitting tribute to István Szőnyi, who was born 130 years ago.

István Szőnyi's Roman years - exhibition