111289

UNTRACED
Sándor Náray-Szabó  1894
Bust or head and shoulders
Oil [support and dimensions unknown]

In his reminiscences, de László recalled that the sitter was a close friend: “At this period [c. 1896] I spent much of my time with Alexander de Szabó, a friend of Lippich and an official in the Ministry of Education. He was a typical member of the Hungarian gentry class, son of a judge in the High Court. I liked him; he was a charming fellow, and a gentleman. I did a small head of him.”^[1] De László also painted the sitter’s father, Miklós Szabó de Nárai, the President of the Supreme Court [7229] in 1894, and in 1896 he painted the sitter’s father-in-law, Doctor Zsigmond László [13399] and the latter’s son, Zsigmond László Jr [110970], who was the sitter’s brother-in-law. The present picture was probably painted in early 1894, as a letter from the sitter to the artist, dated 1 February that year, asks to change the date of a sitting.^[2]

The sitter was also a friend of Elek Lippich [112171], de László’s friend and mentor. They were colleagues in the Ministry of Education, where Lippich was in charge of the department for the Arts, while the sitter was in charge of the department concerned with the education of handicapped children. He later became Undersecretary of State for Public Education. Both the sitter and Lippich built villas in Fonyód, on the southern shore of Lake Balaton, which was then being developed as a holiday resort. De László spent a holiday there in July and early August 1896, staying with the Lippich family whose villa was next door to the villa of the sitter.^[3]

Sándor Náray-Szabó de Nárai was born in Szombathely, in western Hungary, 25 February 1861, the younger son of Miklós Szabó de Nárai (1821-1907), President of the Supreme Court, and his wife, Angélika Perczel de Bonyhád (1837-1865). His mother died when he was four years old and he was brought up by his father, in an intellectual milieu. His father was a close friend of Ferenc Deák (1806-1876), the great politician and lawyer who was mainly responsible for the compromise reached between Austria and Hungary in 1867, which led to the establishment of the Dual Monarchy. Sándor idolized him as a boy.

The sitter studied Medicine at the University of Budapest and graduated in 1885. Rather than go into medical practice, he joined the Ministry of Education. In 1898 he was made head of a newly formed section concerned with handicapped children, and from 1910 until his retirement in 1912 he was Under-secretary of State for Public Education. In 1904, with the permission of the Minister of the Interior, he changed his surname from Szabó to Náray-Szabó.

He was an outstanding and internationally recognised pioneer of the the education of handicapped children in Hungary, and developed new approaches to help the blind, deaf and dumb, and the intellectually handicapped. He was also one of the chief figures in the fight against alcoholism. He represented Hungary at the 1903 international congress on alcoholism in Bremen, and in 1906, when the congress was held in Hungary, was elected chairman of the Anti-alcoholic League.^[4] In 1913, after his retirement from the Ministry he volunteered to work as a doctor in a hospital for war casualties. The following year he contracted diphtheria or scarlet fever, and died on 8 November 1914.^[5]

He married Ilona László, daughter of Doctor Zsigmond László and his wife, Ilona Hoffman. They had a son, Miklós, and two daughters, Mady and Márta.

EXHIBITED:

•Műcsarnok, Budapest, Hungarian Fine Art Society Spring Exhibition and Retrospectives of Philip de László, Mihály Munkácsy, János Pentelei Molnár, Samu Petz and László Hűvös, 4 May - 30 June 1925 [Műcsarnok, Országos Magyar Képzőművészeti Társulat, Budapest, Tavaszi kiállítás és László Fülöp, Munkácsy Mihály, Pentelei Molnár János, valamit Petz Samu és Hűvös László összegyűjtött műveinek kiállítása, 1925. május 4 - június 30.], no. 44

LITERATURE:
•Rutter, Owen, Portrait of a Painter, Hodder and Stoughton, London, 1939, p. 151
•Varga, István, ed., László Gábor 1896-os fonyódi naplója [The 1896 Fonyód diary of Gábor László], Agenda Natura, Veszprém, 2008
•Varga, Imre, & Hatos, Gyula, Náray-Szabó Sándor reformtevékenysége és hatása a szegedi és debreceni gyógypedagógiai intézetekre [The activity and  influence of Sándor Náray-Szabó on the institutions for handicapped children in Szeged and Debrecen] Különleges Bánásmód, 2015 / I., pp. 7-24
•Hatos, Gyula, Náray-Szabó Sándor emlékezete halálának századik évfordulóján [The memory of Sándor Náray-Szabó on the centebary of his death] Gyógypedagógiai Szemle, 2016 / I., pp. 69-81

•DLA033-0093, letter from Sándor Szabó to de László, 1 February 1894



Pd’O & CWS 2017