Janne Schra was inspired to make the paintings after reading the book Comrade Baron, A Journey Through the Vanishing World of the Transylvanian Aristocracy by Dutch writer Jaap Scholten, which will appear on May 4th in an English edition by publishing house Corvina.

Janne Schra (1981) received her formal education at the Academy of Arts in Utrecht and afterwards became the lead-singer of Room Eleven and Schradinova. In 2012 she performed at the Sziget Festival in Budapest. In the beginning of 2013 she released her first solo album, Janne Schra, which stood for 12 weeks in the Dutch Top 100, on position 2. At the opening of the exhibition on May 4th she will perform a few of her songs.

This is what she said about how a young singer artist from the Netherlands painted portraits of Transylvanian aristocrats:

'In 2011 I met Jaap Scholten on the A38 in Budapest. I had a show with my former band and Jaap came up to me after the show and said he wanted to give me a book. I must admit I get a lot of weird offers, so I politely smiled and said I was interested, which I wasn't. Back in Holland my manager handed me an envelope with beautiful stamps and a curly handwriting. I think I had melted already at that point. The book Comrade Baron was inside. I read it and I felt connected to Jaap's romantic view on life, his love for Eastern European lifestyle and his fascination for the beautiful hidden history of Transylvania, its landscapes, people and its lost aristocrats and ruined castles.'

'As I believe in following your heart to see where it leads you, I wanted to do something with this material. I decided to paint a few portraits of Transylvanian aristocrats.'

'The idea was simple. The people in the portraits had to be colorful and flamboyant with proud aristocrat faces. I made them all up. The only person based on a real person is the Red Headed Woman. She is actually a girl from Transylvania I also met on the A38. She said: "Don't tell my mother you turned me into an aristocrat, because I come from a family of peasants”.’

In her own personal colorful way Janne Schra recreated a tiny bit of the destroyed culture of Central Europe.

Jaap Scholten's book was shortlisted in The Netherlands for the prize for the best travel-book 2011, and was the winner of the Libris History Prize 2011. The book has its 11th print-run and sold over 20.000 copies in the Netherlands alone. A Dutch travel organisation now organizes journeys for Dutch citizens to visit Transylvania along the lines of Comrade Baron.

Jaap Scholten interviewed extensively members of three generations of aristocratic Transylvanian families - Apor, Bánffy, Bethlen, Haller, Kálnoky, Kemény, Mikes and Teleki - he spoke with survivors of the Romanian Gulag and returning young aristocrats and doing so captured an unknown but important part of recent European history.

The Jury of the Libris History Prize about Comrade Baron: 'An extraordinary, passionate and important work.'

The exhibition is on for one night only (4 May).

Source: Brody Studios Budapest
Address: 1064 Budapest, Vörösmarty utca 38.