FERENC ERDELY* (Budapest 1904 - 1959 California)
At the high seas, 1927
oil/ply wood board, 62,5 x 47 cm
signed Erdely, dated 1927

ESTIMATE °€ 1000 - 2000
STARTING PRICE °€ 1000

The Hungarian-American painter Francis de Erdely was born in Budapest as Erdely Ferenc. Es became renowned in Europe and the United States for his powerful figure paintings and drawings as well as for his teaching abilities. He was a graduate of the Royal Academy of Art of Budapest. He also studied at the Academy San Fernando in Madrid, the Sorbonne in Paris, and in the Louvre. His pugilistic experience financed his studies for several years in Spain. He first achieved prominence in Hungary where, in Budapest, he won the Szinyei-Merse Grand Prize in 1925, then became well-known in Spain, Holland, Belgium, (Triennial Bronze Medal at Ghent, 1929) France, Czechoslovakia and Australia. His work had been commissioned or bought by the Spanisch Queen Maria Christina, the late Prince Hendrik of Holland and, later, by American museums and collectors. He had received resounding praise from critics, and won a total of 27 prizes in America since 1940-nine of these in 1949. de Erdely's technical abilities, brushwork, and composition were based in European classicism. Politics began to inform his work when Fascism began to gain ground in Europe. As de Erdely's career developed, he became less focused on history painting and the themes of classical Antiquity. Subjects surrounding war, suffering, and human strength became present. De Erdely immigrated to the United States in 1939. Living in New York and Chicago initially, he was hired to paint portrait of wealthy patrons. He also painted images of the American Scene. It was after his move to Los Angeles, when his mature work developed and he established himself as an American artist. He is best known for his figure-based paintings done in Los Angeles during the 1940s and 1950s of immigrants, laborers, dancers, and social outsiders. It has been argued that this period of his work relates directly to De Erdely's own experience as an immigrant in a new country. De Erdely was dean of the Pasadena Art Institute School from 1944 to 1946. In 1948, he became faculty of the Jepson Art Institute in Los Angeles. He was professor of painting at the University of Southern California from 1945 until his death on November 28, 1959. His work is in the permanent collections of the museums of Madrid, Barcelona, Amsterdam, The Hague, Brussels, Antwerp, Ghent, Mons, Bratislava, Algiers, Jeu de Paume, Detroit Institute of Arts, M. H. De Young Memorial Museum of San Francisco, Los Angeles County Museum, Pasadena Art Institute, Denver Art Museum, and the National Gallery of Victoria in Melbourne, Australia.

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