The Hindu : New Delhi News : Showcasing Hungarian strokes and sketches

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Tuesday, Apr 01, 2008
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New Delhi

Showcasing Hungarian strokes and sketches

Madhur Tankha

A month-long exhibition of unknown works of artist Elizabeth Brunner

On Display: A sketch by Elizabeth Brunner.

NEW DELHI: A special month-long exhibition of graphics and sketches by noted Hungarian artist Elizabeth Brunner opens at 1/A Janpath here beginning Thursday.

Titled “From Soul to Soul”, an important highlight of the exhibition is that it will feature completely unknown works of the late Hungarian artist, who lived and worked in India.

Organised by Hungarian Information and Cultural Centre, it will be inaugurated by Sangeet Natak Akademi Chairman Ram Niwas Mirdha. Most of the exhibited pieces are portraits of eminent personalities including Mahatma Gandhi, Jawaharlal Nehru and Rabindranath Tagore, with whom the gifted artist had close personal contact. Elizabeth became popular as a portrait-painter as she made portraits of great personalities of the national movement. She also excelled in painting the rural people and scenes of country life.

Born into an artist family at Nagykanizsa in 1910, Elizabeth inherited the creative talent of her parents. Her father, Ferenc Sass Brunner, and her mother, Elizabeth Sass Brunner, were both well-known painters. Even at a young age, Elizabeth used to give glimpses of her immense talent with her deft brushstrokes. She made her first portrait in 1919 and nine years later joined the Academy of Fine Arts in Budapest where she became the student of famous sculptor Zsigmond Kisfaludi Stróbl.

Though she showed her mastery in sculpting, Elizabeth gave it up to become a full-fledged painter instead. She found her real genre in portraits.

In May 1929, Elizabeth accompanied her mother for a journey to India through Italy, Libya and Egypt. In Sicily, Elizabeth saw a vision of Rabindranath Tagore. In her dream the poet gave her a candle with these words: “Take this light to every nook and corner of the world!” Inspired by the dream, her mother wrote a letter to Tagore, and the great poet invited them to Santiniketan.

Elizabeth and her mother arrived in India on February 17, 1930. They spent their first two years at Santiniketan and then started to discover the rest of the country. They visited the holy places across the country. Later, Elizabeth travelled with her mother and exhibited her paintings in Japan (1935-37), the United States (1937-38) and Britain (1938). The mother-daughter duo returned for a short visit to Hungary, only to make their way finally back to India, which still held them enchanted.

During World War II, Elizabeth and her mother were interned by the British authorities in Nainital. After the war, they decided to settle there. After the death of her mother in 1950, Elizabeth moved to Delhi and held a series of exhibitions, the most famous of which was at the 1956 Buddha Jayanti celebrations. The exhibition was also presented in Nepal, Burma, Thailand and Sri Lanka.

In 1988, Elizabeth once again visited her native country, and on that occasion she was awarded the Order of Banner of the People’s Republic Hungary. In 1995, she received the Middle Cross of the Republic of Hungary.

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