Stefan van Drake: Meet 'painting hunter' Gergely Barki and his reprised show of Hungarian revolutionary Fauvists: "The Eight"

"Self-portrait with a Top Hat" by Robert Bereny, oil on canvas (1907) Photograph by Stefan van Drake (2011)

His curator colleagues call him the "painting hunter."

Gergely Barki, age 40, chief curator/organizer of the current exhibition, The Eight, at the Museum of Fine Arts Budapest, curated the first show of these Hungarian Fauvist, avant-garde artists in 2006 at the Hungarian National Gallery, Budapest.

Barki's co-curators for The Eight: Peter Molnos, Krisztina Passuth, Zoltan Rockenbauer (former Hungarian Minister of Culture).

It opened on 18 May and runs to 12 September.

Gergerly Barki Photograph by Stefan van Drake (2011)

Since then, his research and work with the group "The Eight" has consumed him.

The eight Hungarian Fauves (Fauves Honrois): Róbert Berény, Dezső Czigány, Béla Czóbel, Károly Kernstok, Ödön Márffy, Dezső Orbán, Bertalan Pór and Lajos Tihanyi.

These Hungarian modernists worked in Budapest and Paris between 1904 and 1912.

Inspired by French Modernism, the group's first Budapest exhibition in 1909 broke ranks with the impressionists and naturalists, catapulting it leaps and bounds beyond this marker and turning Hungary towards the west.

For the first time the public experienced a group of young artists whose works illustrated the wave of modern trends emerging principally from Paris, where these Hungarian painters lived and worked (as well as in Budapest) with Matisse and were especially inspired by Cezanne.

The Eight, a name coined just before their second exhibition in 1911, galvanized these artists, all of whom idolized Hungarian poet Endre Ady.

They last exhibited as The Eight in 1912, again in Budapest.

Some of them individually exhibited in Paris shows.

They joined a greater Hungarian circle of artists, musicians and intellectuals, including omposers Béla Bartók and Zoltán Kodály, and philosopher György Lukács.

After the third show of The Eight, which included included works in the vein of Cubism, Expressionism bordering on Futurism, the circle broke apart.

Only Karoly Kernstok and Bertalan Por developed a classicizing style, and, in fact, Kernstok was never too much into strong tones. And although six of them were Jewish, most were not dispersed to safe havens (only Dezso Orban to Australia in 1939) as WWII approached.

Most died in Hungary but due to natural causes.

"Portrait of Two Women" by Czigny Dezso, oil on laminated paper (1909)
Photograph by Stefan van Drake (2011)

During an interview at the museum after one of its Thursday night Muzeum Cafe roundtable discussions with the public, Barki told me about his search and discover mission.

Barki's serious research into the lives and paintings of these artists started about four years ago.

"Landscape with a Chiminey" by Odon Marffy, oil on canvas (1910)
Photograph by Stefan van Drake (2011)

Detail from ""Old Vac Customs" by Odon Marffy, oil on canvas (1910)
Photograph by Stefan van Drake (2011)

The youngest member, Robert Bereny was about 19; the oldest at the time, Karoly Kernstok, about 24, Barki said.

The centenary exhibition of The Eight in Budapest closely links to the previously staged shows devoted to the group, The Hungarian Fauves, displayed in 2006 at the Hungarian National Gallery by Barki and others.

A traveling exhibition, Fauves Hongrois arrived in France (Céret, Le Cateau-Cambresis, Dijon) in 2008-2009 and attracted thousands of viewers.

Then came The Eight, an exhibition hosted by the city of Pécs and highlighted as a primary program of the Pécs European Capital of Culture Project.

"Montparnasse Nude" by Robert Bereny, oil on canvas (1907)
Photograph by Stefan van Drake (2011)

And while launching only three major shows in Budapest before breaking up, The Eight's production appears prolific.

So much so that Barki soon discovered that 80 to 100 of The Eight's works had gone missing.

"The Family"(large format) by Berterlan Por, oil on canvas (1909-10)
Photograph by Stefan van Drake (2011)

Barki managed to find photographs of most the wanted works and put out an all points bulletin, then a magazine and finally, he established a separate salon at the Museum of Fine Arts Budapest called, "WANTED."

Here the viewing public can help identify lost or missing works.

By now, the forensic curator's search took on a surreal dimension.

One evening at home while watching a Stuart Little film lost treasure appeared on his TV screen.

"Idyll" by Robert Bereny, oil on canvas (1911)
Photograph by Stefan van Drake (2011)

"Still Life with a Blue Jug" by Robert Bereny, oil on wood (1911)
Photograph by Stefan van Drake (2011)

One his most WANTED paintings suddenly appeared above the fireplace mantel in one scene.

The next day, Barki unearthed contact information for every major living actor, set designer, anyone on the film credits and sent e-mails and letters, a wide net hoping to discover who owned the work.

Sketches for painting, 'Sermon on the Mount'" lower, and for "The Folk Opera" above by Bertalan Por (1911)
Photograph by Stefan van Drake (2011)

"Yearning for Pure Love" (large format) by Bertalan Por (1911)
Photograph by Stefan van Drake (2011)

A set designer contacted Barki, disclosing the former owned the painting.

Many of the works in the current exhibition of The Eight emanate from private collections.

"Portrait of Endre Ady" by Dezso Czigany, oil on wood panel (1907)
Photograph by Stefan van Drake (2011)

Another curatorial sojourn began when his WANTED posters produced a response from Sydney, Australia from the widow of the man who bought the large format nude painting from Orban Desiderius.

Desiderius, who died at 102 in the 1980's, and one of the Jewish members of the Fauvist group, saw the Holocaust coming and in 1939 emigrated to Australia, according to Barki.

"The painting by Desiderius was one of the biggest female nudes by The Eight," said Barki.

The story unravels that Desiderius sold the large format female oil on canvas painting for 300 British guineas (allot of money at the time) so he could start an art school in Sydney, which he did.

"Female and Male Figure" by Lajos Tihanyi, oil on canvas (1911)
Photograph by Stefan van Drake (2011)

"Still Life with Flowers" by Bela Czobel, oil on canvas mounted on card (1908)
Photograph by Stefan van Drake (2011)

Barki visisted Australia last summer and persuaded the painting's owner to loan it to the museum for the current show.

It arrived a few days after the show started in May.

The persistent curator Barki found another painting by Bereny stashed under the bed of one of the painter's heirs gathering dust and age.

"Nude Sitting in an Armchair" by Robert Bereny, oil on canvas (1911)
Photograph by Stefan van Drake (2011)

Since he launched the first Hungarian reprise of The Eight in 2010 at Pec, a show of about 500 works, Barki has found and retrieved for the current exhibit 10 new paintings.

"Standing Female Nude" by Odon Marffy, brush & ink on paper (1911)
Photograph by Stefan van Drake (2011)

The Museum of Fine Arts Budapest show contains about 200 paintings, drawings, sculptures by Hungarian artists who frequently added their works to the three shows of The Eight (1909, 1911 and 1912).

Karoly Kernstok Stained glass window design (partial) for the Schiffer Villa (1911)
Photograph by Stefan van Drake (2011)

The Eight's popularity in Hungary comes after French curators in 2008-09 put up the Hungarian traveling show in a small French town of 8,000: Ceret; 60,000 people came to the exhibition of about 150 works, entitled "Fauves Hongrois," according to Barki.

It then journeyed to Dijon le Cateau Cambresis at the Hanri Matisse Museum.

"Large Nude"(large format) by Dezso Orban (found in Sydney by Barki) oil on canvas (1911)
Photograph by Stefan van Drake (2011)

Riding on the success of The Eight's show in Pec, Barki proposed to his colleagues a pared down and more focused curatorial production for the Museum of Fine Arts Budapest.

"Christ on the Cross" by Robert Bereny, oil on canvas mounted on card (1912)
Photograph by Stefan van Drake (2011)

He also initiated a documentary film, tracing the lives of these painters in Paris and Hungary, which should debut at the Museum of Fine Arts Budapest this month.

You can see trailers of the film at the current show.

"Nude of a Boy Leaning on a Tree" by Karoly Kernstok, oil on laminated paper (1909)
Photograph by Stefan van Drake (2011)

Barki's research also specifically focuses on Robert Bereny, his doctoral thesis, a work in progress, he said smiling.

"Portrait of Magdolna Leopold" by Lajos Tihanyi (1914)
Photograph by Stefan van Drake (2011)

"Horsemen at the Water" by Karoly Kernstok, paper mounted on card (1910)
Photograph by Stefan van Drake (2011)

"Standing Nude" by Odon Marffy, oil on canvas (1910)
Photograph by Stefan van Drake (2011)

"Landscape with a Bridge" by Lajos Tihanyi, oil on canvas (1909)
Photograph by Stefan van Drake (2011)

In this first of a series about The Eight and their circle's fringe of painters and sculptors, I want you to see some of the WANTED pictures posted by curator Barki in a separate salon adjacent the temporary show.

Help locate the most WANTED missing pictures of The Eight

You might know where one or more of these works resides and help bring together more of Hungary's most energized and rebellious Fauvist painters. Others of the WANTED will be featured in future posts.