“Floating in the Light Room”: The Painter of Lake Balaton and His Artistic Development

An exhibition presenting the life’s work of József Egry has opened at the Vaszary Gallery in Balatonfüred. The exhibition comprises more than fifty paintings and, in addition to the characteristic landscapes of the artist known as the painter of Lake Balaton, also features lesser-known early works, caricatures, and self-portraits.

The exhibition shows a selection from the ResoArt collection of András Szabó and Magdolna Költő, which was compiled with passion and dedication and is the largest Egry collection in the country.

It includes several previously unknown, never-before-seen works, most of which date from Egry’s early creative period and illustrate the development of his artistic style.

The selection focuses not only on Egry’s best-known creative period, the Balaton paintings, but also shows the entire spectrum of his life’s work. In addition to the paintings, excerpts from his private letters from the 1930s and 1940s can also be read, which reflect the artist’s personality.

József Egry: Badacsony. Photo: MTI/Hegedüs Róbert

József Egry was a solitary prophet from Badacsony who, as an artist and artistic thinker, created a unique, authentic life’s work. To this day, his paintings are among the few visual foundations that almost every Hungarian encounters somewhere. His art is not based on abstract theory, but on a multi-layered perception of reality that also encompasses the transcendent.

In Egry’s work, the light and colors of the landscape are simultaneously still and moving; they are real images and a gently swaying fantasy world.

Absolutely concrete and cosmically expanded. Objectively descriptive and deeply spiritual. At the same time, we have the feeling that something is deliberately missing. However, this reduction does not take anything away, but rather shapes. The reality of the objects, figures, and forms is missing; they themselves become light and create wondrous paths between heaven and earth—as László Baán put it at the opening of the exhibition.

According to the director general of the Museum of Fine Arts, the magnificent collection of András Szabó and Magdolna Költő is a conscious collection based on museum standards, which not only shows the painter of Lake Balaton, but his entire exciting oeuvre, including his early works, which never cease to surprise those who only know the artist’s light-filled Balaton paintings.

József Egry professed his love for the landscape not only with pictures, but also with words, including his often-quoted statement that Lake Balaton is nature’s tear of joy. This beautiful metaphor confirms that

Egry is a painter of pantheistic enthusiasm, whose paintings reflect the radiance of the universe in the mirror image of Lake Balaton,”

concluded László Baán in his speech.

József Egry (1883-1951): Self-portrait. Photo: Wikimedia Commons

Egry’s paintings are still relevant today and timeless thanks to their highly atmospheric and emotional modernism, explained Anna Sipos, art historian and curator of the exhibition, to balatonfured.hu.

The exhibition can be seen at the Vaszary Gallery until June 21.

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