József Koszta (27 March 1861 – 29 July 1949) was a Hungarian painter whose major works include ''Girl with Geraniums'', ''Corn Snappers'' and ''Woman Drying Plates''.

Life

Born on 27 March 1861, Koszta trained at various schools of art, including the Academy of Fine Arts in Munich, which he attended in 1891 on a scholarship, and the Master School of

Gyula Benczúr Gyula Benczúr (28 January 1844, Nyíregyháza – 16 July 1920, Szécsény) was a Hungarian painter and art teacher. He specialized in portraits and historical scenes. Biography His family moved to Kassa when he was still very young and he d ...

. He studied under

Károly Lotz Lotz Károly Antal Pál, or Karl Anton Paul Lotz (16 December 1833 – 13 October 1904) was a German- Hungarian painter. Career Karl Lotz was born in Bad Homburg vor der Höhe, Germany, the 7th and youngest surviving child of Wilhelm Chr ...

and Bertalan Szekely. He became a member of the

Szolnok Szolnok (; also known by other alternative names) is the county seat of Jász-Nagykun-Szolnok county in central Hungary. A city with county rights, it is located on the banks of the Tisza river, in the heart of the Great Hungarian Plain, wh ...

Art Colony and worked largely in solitude on a farm he shared with landscape artist István Nagy for many years. Koszta's artistic vision began to emerge in the 1920s. Working in the realism school, he focused heavily on images depicting peasant life, utilizing strong tonal colors and emphasizing the interplay of light and shadow. Particularly as his work progressed, he explored the pop of bright color against dark background. His prolific body of work includes portraits, genre paintings, still life and landscapes. Prior to his death on 29 July 1949, he donated his images to the museum in Szentes, which renamed itself in his honor the Koszta József Múzeum. Koszta is also commemorated in Szentes in the names of a street and an elementary school. In 1999, the city of Budapest held a memorial in his honor. In 2005, the city of Szentes placed a Wreath of Remembrance on Koszta's grave, but research later discovered that Kostza was interred elsewhere in an unmarked grave. His remains were reinterred in state in 2008.

References

* * * * 1861 births 1949 deaths People from Brașov 19th-century Hungarian painters 20th-century Hungarian painters Hungarian male painters 19th-century Hungarian male artists 20th-century Hungarian male artists {{Hungary-painter-stub