János Nagy Balogh (2 August 1874,

Budapest Budapest (, ; ) is the capital and most populous city of Hungary. It is the ninth-largest city in the European Union by population within city limits and the second-largest city on the Danube river; the city has an estimated population ...

– 22 November 1919, Budapest) was a Hungarian painter and graphic artist who specialized in

proletarian The proletariat (; ) is the social class of wage-earners, those members of a society whose only possession of significant economic value is their labour power (their capacity to work). A member of such a class is a proletarian. Marxist philoso ...

subjects.

Biography

He came from a humble, working-class family. His father died early and his mother had to support the family doing laundry, so he spent much of his youth in poverty. Later, he was apprenticed to a Master Painter whose drunken, abusive behavior made him seek a way to escape, so he began saving his money with the goal of becoming an artist. Originally, he enrolled at the "School of Fine and Applied Arts", where he attended night classes while supporting himself by house-painting. In 1899, he was able to spend a few months in Munich, attending classes taught by

Ludwig von Herterich Ludwig von Herterich (13 October 1856, Ansbach - 25 December 1932, Etzenhausen, today in Dachau) was a German painter and art teacher. He is best known as a painter of portraits and history paintings and is a representative of the Munich Scho ...

at the

Academy of Fine Arts The following is a list of notable art schools. Accredited non-profit art and design colleges * Adelaide Central School of Art * Alberta College of Art and Design * Art Academy of Cincinnati * Art Center College of Design * The Art Institute o ...

,Brief biography
@ the Magyar Elektronikus Könyvtár but his financial necessities continued to prevent him from attending daytime classes so he ended up being essentially self-taught and able to paint only in his spare time. At first, he developed his style by painting

still life A still life (plural: still lifes) is a work of art depicting mostly wikt:inanimate, inanimate subject matter, typically commonplace objects which are either natural (food, flowers, dead animals, plants, rocks, shells, etc.) or artificiality, m ...

s, self-portraits and portraits of his mother, engaged in household chores. Then, perhaps under the influence of

Jean-François Millet Jean-François Millet (; 4 October 1814 – 20 January 1875) was a French artist and one of the founders of the Barbizon school in rural France. Millet is noted for his paintings of peasant farmers and can be categorized as part of the Realism ...

, he decided to focus on painting the workers he knew so well from his youth. For many years, he remained reluctant to show his works in public or part with them. What little money he earned from working went mostly to painting supplies. He eventually became a local "character", who was readily recognizable by the very old, floppy hat he always wore. In 1915, he joined the Army and received a wound that resulted in his right arm being paralyzed, but he continued to work as best he could with his left hand. One day, his neighbors heard a loud crash and rushed to his apartment, where they found him lying on his back, clutching his brush. He was taken to the hospital, but died shortly after arriving there. His friend, the art critic and writer, , arranged for a quick, private (and apparently somewhat secret) burial at the New Public Cemetery. Within ten years, his neglected grave had disappeared. Due to the political unrest at the time, his first exhibition wasn't staged until 1922 at the Museum of Fine Arts. After 1945, when the Communist government took power and

social realism Social realism is the term used for work produced by painters, printmakers, photographers, writers and filmmakers that aims to draw attention to the real socio-political conditions of the working class as a means to critique the power structure ...

in the arts was being promoted, his paintings gained official approbation. In 1959, on the anniversary of his death, a major exhibition was held at the

Hungarian National Gallery The Hungarian National Gallery (also known as Magyar Nemzeti Galéria), was established in 1957 as the national art museum. It is located in Buda Castle in Budapest, Hungary. Its collections cover Hungarian art in all genres, including the works ...

. A

commemorative stamp A commemorative stamp is a postage stamp, often issued on a significant date such as an anniversary, to honor or commemorate a place, event, person, or object. The ''subject'' of the commemorative stamp is usually spelled out in print, unlike def ...

with one of his self-portraits was issued in 1969 and a statue in his honor (showing him in his trademark hat), by , was created in 1975 and placed in Kós Károly Park.
Köztérkép ("Pictures in Public Places"): Statue of Nagy Balogh in Kós Károly Park.

Other selected paintings

File:Nagy Balogh János Still-life with Sieve, Bun and Mug.jpg, Still Life with Sieve, Bun and Mug (date unknown) File:Nagy Balogh Navvies with Barrow.jpg, Navvy, Navvies with Wheelbarrows (1912) File:Nagy Balogh János The Artist s Mother c. 1910.jpg, The Artist's Mother (c.1910) File:Nagy Balogh János Atelier 1912.jpg, The Artist's Studio (c.1912)

References

External links

"János Nagy Balogh: Kubikusok" (Navvy)
Brief biographies, appreciations and references. {{DEFAULTSORT:Nagy Balogh, Janos 1874 births 1919 deaths Social realist artists 20th-century Hungarian painters Hungarian male painters 20th-century Hungarian male artists Painters from Austria-Hungary

Biography

Other selected paintings

References

Further reading

External links