110928

Study portrait

József Kiss 1904

Oil on board, 73 x 50 cm

Inscribed lower right: A 60 éves poetának / László F. E. / Bécs 1904 [For the 60 year-old poet, László F. E., Vienna 1904]

Petőfi Museum of Literature, Budapest

This portrait was a gift from de László to the poet for his 60th birthday. They were both members of the Feszty Salon in Budapest, established in 1892 by the painter Árpád Feszty and his wife,  née Róza Jókai, daughter of the famous novelist Mór Jókai.^[1]  Its aim was to unite eminent artists, writers, musicians, intellectuals and politicians, regardless of their social origins. The only qualification for entry was high achievement in their particular field and there were some one hundred members. De László painted a number of other members of the Feszty Salon: Dezső Szilágyi [13102] in 1894, Elek Lippich [112171] in 1895, Gyula Wlassics [110810] in 1901, Albert Berzeviczy [110804] in 1904, and Count Péter Vay [5617] in 1904.

Kiss was at the pinnacle of his career when this portrait was painted, and no doubt de László admired his poetry. The sitter was also painted by a number of other well-known Hungarian artists, including Károly Ferenczy,^[2] István Réti,^[3] Miklós Vadász,^[4] and Ferenc Paczka,^[5] and he was sculpted by Ede Telcs.^[6] Kiss wrote: “People say that my home is more like an art gallery than the hermitage of a puritan writer.”^[7]

József Kiss, né Klein, was born 30 November 1843 in Mezőcsát, eastern Hungary. His mother was the daughter of a Jewish cantor, who fled from the pogroms in Lithuania, and she hoped her son would become a rabbi. In 1854-55 he attended Hebrew religious schools but he ran away with a friend to Vienna. Later he attended the Calvinist College in Debrecen. As an itinerant teacher he travelled the country. After the declaration of Jewish emancipation in 1867, he went to Pest full of literary ambition to publish his poems at the first Jewish congress, but he failed to achieve this. In 1868 he moved to Pest, where he published his volume Zsidó dalok (Jewish Songs). He found employment at Képes Világ (The World in Pictures), a magazine where he worked as an editor until the periodical ceased publication in 1873. On 28 April 1873 he married a distant relative, Róza Bermann (1855-1921). Their son, Ottó, became a well known photographer.

Kiss achieved immediate fame when his ballad Simon Judit was read in the Kisfaludy Society in 1875. This important literary society had been founded in 1836 and Kiss was elected a member in 1914. He was elected a member of the Petőfi Literary Society in 1877. He moved to Temesvár where for six years he worked as the notary for the local Jewish community. In 1882 his ballad Ágota kisasszony (Miss Agatha), published in German in Budapest, was a major success. From 1882 he worked in Budapest as a clerk in the Hungarian-French Insurance Company. In 1889 he started his own periodical, A Hét (The Week), which soon became the leading illustrated literary magazine until the launch of Nyugat (West) in 1908, which introduced the great lyric poets of a new generation.^[8] He tried to rival Nyugat, but he could not compete with its appeal to younger readers.

His late poetry is characterized by a depressed mood and the expectation of death.^[9] His health deteriorated, and he died in Budapest 21 December 1921. With the increasing anti-semitism of the 1930’s, his poetry was neglected and largely forgotten. He was fascinated by the Jewish past, but throughout his literary career he identified as Hungarian. During the German occupation of Hungary from March 1944,  books by Jewish authors were destroyed. An illustration in a popular magazine of June 1944 shows Jewish books being thrown into a paper mill, led by a government Minister. The caption states that the first book he threw on the pile was a volume of poetry by Jόzsef Kiss.^[10]

PROVENANCE:
The sitter;
Simon Krausz de Érd;^[11]

Offered at auction, Ernst Museum, Budapest;^[12]
Offered at auction, Árverési Csarnok, Budapest, 27 October 1924;^[13]

Tibor de Nagy;^[14]

Dénes Deák;^[15]

Acquired by the Petőfi Museum of Literature, 1986

EXHIBITED:
•Hungarian Fine Art Society, Budapest, Téli kiállítás [Winter Exhibition], 1904, no. 366, ill.^[16]
•Nemzeti Szalon, Budapest, April 1907, no. 62 (private collection)
•Petőfi Irodalmi Múzeum [Petőfi Museum of Literature], Budapest, Kiss József emlékkiállítás [József Kiss Memorial Exhibition], 11 November 2003 - 31 January 2004

LITERATURE:
•A Hét, Christmas edition, 1913, ill. in colour

•Internationale Sammler-Zeitung, 1 September 1923, p. 127
•Rubinyi, Mózes, Kiss József  élete és munkássága (The Life and Work of József Kiss), Singer és Wolfner, Budapest, 1926

•Sinkovics, Péter, Beszélgetés Nagy Tibor New York-i galériással [Interview with Tibor de Nagy, a gallerist in New York], Új Művészet, 1 December 1990, pp. 3-8
•Kiss, József, Fires, in Makkai, Adam ed, In Quest of the Miracle Stag: The Poetry of Hungary, Corvina, Budapest, 1996, pp. 374-375
•Kiss, József, in Irodalmi Múzeum. A Petőfi irodalmi múzeum hírlevele [Museum of Literature. The News-Sheet of the Petőfi Museum of Literature], 2003-2004, vol. III., no. 4, p. 12
•Tolnai Világlapja 1901-1944, Negyvennégy évfolyam egy kötetben [Forty-four volumes in one],
2nd edition, no date, p. 364

•DLA162-0058, Pesti Hírlap, 4 December 1904, p. 31

•DLA091-0181, Rothauser, Max, Winterausstellung im Künstlerhause, Pester Lloyd,  undated, page unknown [presumably 1904]

•NSzL149-0010, letter from de László to Lajos Ernst, 21 March 1907
•DLA095-0012, Miscellaneous press cuttings, 1924, ill.

•DLA162-0463, Pesti Hírlap, 27 October 1929, p. 10
•DLA122-0074, Coupures scrapbook, ill.



CWS, BS & Pd’O  2018