Vilmos Aba Novák

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Self-portrait

Vilmos Aba-Novák (15 March 1894-29 September 1941^[1]) 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

Aba-Novák´s home Budapest, Zsolt utca 7

Novák was born in Budapest, Hungary, where he would also die. After studying at the Art School until 1912, he began work under Adolf Fényes. Between 1912 and 1914, Novák studied at the College of Fine Arts in Budapest^[1]. 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 village fair 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 artists in Szolnok^[1] and Baia Mare (Nagybánya), Romania (see Baia Mare School), and was first exhibited in 1924. He was sent by the Hungarian Academy as a Fellow on a scholarship to Rome (1928 and 1930), and became a renowned representative of the so-called "Roman School" in Hungarian painting.

Aba Novák painted many frescoes for the Roman Catholic church of Jászszentandrás, and Hõsök Kapuja in Szeged in 1936 (the latter was white-washed after 1945), and painted many commissions for the Hungarian government^[1]. Aba also he worked on frescoes of the Saint Stephen Mausoleum in Székesfehérvár and on the Church in Városmajor, Budapest, in 1938. The jury's Grand Prize at the Paris World Exhibition in 1937 and the 1940 Venice Biennale were both awarded to him^[1].

He was a teacher at the College of Fine Arts from 1939^[1] until his death.