Vilmos Aba Novák

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Self-portrait

Vilmos Aba-Novák (1894-1941) was a Hungarian painter and graphic artist. He was an original representative of modern art in his country, and specifically of its modern monumental painting. He was also the celebrated author of frescoes, and was officially patronized by the Hungarian nobility.

[edit] Biography

After studying at the Art School until 1912, he began work under Adolf Fényes. Completing his service in the Austro-Hungarian Army on the Eastern Front during World War I, he took up drawing at Viktor Olgyai. Aba Novak was particularly interested in circuses and the marketplaces which appeared in his early paintings with the vivid colours of Expressionism and the Italian novocento.

Between 1921 and 1923, he spent his summers with the group of atists in Baia Mare (Nagybánya), Romania (see Baia Mare School), and was first exhibited in 1924. He was sent by the Hungarian Academy on a scholarship to Rome (1928 and 1831), and became a renowned representative of the so-called "Roman School" in Hungarian painting.

Aba Novák painted frescoes for the Roman Catholic church of Jászszentandrás, and Hõsök Kapuja in Szeged in 1936 (the latter was white-washed after 1945). Aba also he worked on frescoes of the Saint Stephen Mausoleum in Székesfehérvár and on the Church in Városmajor, Budapest, in 1938.

He was a teacher at the Arts School from 1939 until his death.