Joseph Rippl-Ronai

József Rippl-Rónai is recognized as the first painter to introduce and bring about appreciation for modern art in Hungary. He was born in the historical and industrial city of Kaposvár on May 23, 1861. His early childhood and family details are not known, but in his young adult years he finished high school in Kaposvár and then went on to get his pharmacology degree in Budapest. He must have had some latent inclination for art, because in 1884 he went to Munich to study in the Munich Academy of Fine Arts for two years.

His talent was such that he was able to get a student grant which allowed him to travel to Paris. He lived there for several years, initially studying with a famous realist painter and fellow Hungarian, Mihály Munkácsy. He was influenced by Edgar Degas’ nudes, as can be seen in his painting called Nude on a Balcony, and he was introduced to Impressionism and Post-Impressionism by the many artists he met while he lived there. The Nabis group in Paris were very active during that decade, and he joined in with Paul Ranson and some of the other members in 1888. Their styles and color theories influenced him in such a way that he produced his first notable painting, titled The Inn at Pont-Aven. It wasn’t until several years later that he got great reviews for his 1894 painting called My Grandmother.

When he did return home to Hungary in 1901, Rippl-Ronai did not get the kind of reception he may have expected. He did not receive much attention at all for his avant-garde artwork in Hungary. It took some time, but finally, with his collective works from 1890 to 1900 put on display, he gained much need attention from supportive art critics. The exhibition was named “Rippl-Ronai Impressions 1890 - 1900”.

His art theories had evolved as he grew more mature, and he became interested in design, from clothing to furnishings, as he felt that art should be found in all things. Rippl-Ronai was soon commissioned to design the furnishings for the entire Andrassy Palace in Budapest. The huge “French castle-like” palace (built between 1867 and 1871) belonged to Gyula Andrássy, the first ever Prime Minister in the history of Austria-Hungary. He was also asked by the owners of the Ernst Museum to design a stained glass window for their museum.

The paintings that he exhibited in Munich, Vienna and in Frankfurt in 1911, 1912 and 1913 were all considered a success. After that he was not in the spotlight as much, but in 1918 he painted a portrait called Zorka in a Red Armchair, which can be considered his last major work. Zorka Banyai was a female friend of his whom he’d painted many times before, in Zorka in Black, Zorka in the Blue Ring (1916), Woman in Black Gloves (Zorka) (1915) and then later he made another one called Zorka in 1923. He also had the opportunity in 1921 to paint the portrait of Hungarian Zdenka Ticharich, who was a famous pianist and composer at that time. In his last years Joseph Rippl-Ronai lived in his birthplace of Kaposvár, and on November 25, 1927 he died in the Villa Roma, which had been his home.