Works of Sándor Galimberti & Valéria Dénes @ Hungarian National Gallery

  • 28 Jan 2025 3:26 PM
Works of Sándor Galimberti & Valéria Dénes @ Hungarian National Gallery
On display until 23 February 2025. The Galimberti couple were seminal figures of twentieth-century modern Hungarian painting, but their promising careers were abruptly ended by their tragic deaths upon the threshold of international success.

From Hungarian National Gallery Team:

Our exhibition, realised within the framework of the Liszt Fest International Cultural Festival, is the most comprehensive presentation of the oeuvres of the two artists so far.

The oeuvre of Sándor Galimberti and Valéria Dénes is scattered and largely missing, with barely more than forty of their paintings having survived.

An exhibition of the art of Sándor Galimberti was organised in his hometown, Kaposvár, in 2002 but the number of works known by him has significantly increased in the two decades since then, and recent research has fundamentally rewritten the story and importance of this peculiarly entwined double oeuvre.

In addition to previously unknown paintings that have emerged on the art market in the past quarter of a century, an early Galimberti still life, previously only recorded by its title, was also found during the preparations for the exhibition and now, after missing for 110 years, it is presented to the public for the first time. Research carried out before the exhibition has also revealed that several paintings previously attributed to Sándor Galimberti are not his works but those of his wife, Valéria Dénes.

Our exhibition seeks to present the complete Galimberti–Dénes material known thus far. In addition, the works that have survived in the estate of the Kaposvár-born painter’s father, Luigi Galimberti, as well as the rich collection of paintings and graphic art coming from the hometown of Galimberti’s first wife, the Czech Maria Lanov, also have their Hungarian debut now. The displayed material comprises 85 paintings and graphic pieces as well as numerous documents.
 

The activity of the Galimbertis spanned from plein air naturalism through art nouveau and fauvism to cubism, and, in a certain sense, to futurism. The couple made a similarly extensive journey on the map of Europe, travelling from Kaposvár through Nagybánya (now Baia Mare), all the way to Paris, Belgium and, finally, to the Netherlands. The exhibition, therefore, also presents the places that played an important role in their lives.

 In Paris, the Galimbertis learnt from the most modern painters of the day and directly worked together with some of them; for example, Valéria Dénes was a pupil of Henri Matisse. They exhibited their works at the Salon in Paris almost every year; moreover, in 1914, just before the outbreak of World War I, they had a solo show in Montmartre, at the legendary Galerie Berthe Weill, from where the careers of Pablo Picasso and Henri Matisse, among others, had taken off.

When World War I broke out, the artist couple lived in France, from where they fled to the Netherlands to escape internment. Although the requisition of their studio in Paris and the loss of the great majority of their works was a major blow for them, they were able to continue their lives and work in the Netherlands under reassuring conditions.

However, Sándor Galimberti could not bear the thought of not defending his homeland while war was waged in Europe, so the couple travelled back to Hungary in spring 1915. He was drafted and was about to leave for the front in July, when his wife contracted pneumonia and died only a few days later. On the day of Valéria Dénes’s funeral, Sándor Galimberti took his army revolver and shot himself in the heart behind the Kunsthalle.

Even though barely any documents have survived about the Galimbertis and only a few photographs of them are known, the most important pieces of the available archival material are displayed at our exhibition. Of these, the most important sources regarding research are the letters – predominantly written by Valéria Dénes –, which are published in their entirety for the first time in the catalogue. Highlighted among these at the exhibition is the most poignant document of the oeuvre: Sándor Galimberti’s suicide note.

The entwined and abruptly ended oeuvre of the Galimbertis is presented chronologically, and – similarly to the curator’s other exhibitions –, a prominent role is given to lost works.

The WANTED section includes enlarged black-and-white archival photographs of the more significant missing paintings, drawing attention to the painful gaps in the oeuvre in the hope that they might surface one day. The last exhibition hall takes visitors behind the scenes of the research, revealing further exciting discoveries.

A large part of the displayed works are loans from public collections, while diverse material was also contributed by private collectors.

The exhibition is accompanied by a richly illustrated 370-page catalogue, which can be regarded as the first major Galimberti–Dénes monograph.

More: 
Hungarian National Gallery 

  • How does this content make you feel?

Explore More Reports