Béla Adalbert CZÓBEL

Béla Czobel (Budapest 1883 – Budapest 1976)

Béla Czobel is a Hungarian painter and draftsman of the School of Paris. Guided by his grandfather, Béla Czóbel began an artistic career in 1902 in the painters' colony of Nagybanya in Transylvania. The following year, he studied at the Academy of Fine Arts in Munich, where he met Jules Pascin, Rudolf Levy, and Walter Bondy.
Guided by his grandfather, Béla Czóbel began an artistic career in 1902 in the painters' colony of Nagybánya (Baia Mare) in Transylvania. During the years 1902-1903 he studied at the Munich Academy and arrived in Paris in 1903. In Paris, he first lived at the Hôtel du Danemark in Montparnasse and studied at the Académie Julian. He took part in the Fauvist movement and exhibited alongside Derain, Vlaminck, Braque, and Matisse at the Salon d'Automne in 1905. In 1909 in Paris, he joined the formation of the avant-garde group called the "Eight". Each summer the artist returned to Hungary and bore witness to French avant-garde painting.
Bela Czobel took part in the Fauvist movement and exhibited alongside Derain, Vlaminck, Braque, and Matisse at the Salon d'Automne in 1905. He also exhibited at the Salon des Indépendants from 1906 to 1908 as well as at the Salon des Tuileries in 1926. In 1909 in Paris, he joined the formation of the avant-garde group called the "Eight". The artist, being in Hungary at the beginning of the First World War and unable to return to his Parisian studio, spent the war years until 1919 in Holland. Between 1919 and 1925, the painter settled in Berlin, exhibited notably at the "Der Sturm" gallery, and returned to Paris in 1925. In 1940, he went back to settle in Hungary, in Szentendre, where the museum dedicated to the artist is currently located.