JÁNOS VASZARY | Sailors in Portorož, Slovenia

A gift from the artist to the parents of Francis Bator; thence by descent

The original canvas has been fully relined and stretched on a new keyed wooden stretcher. Some undulations of the lining are visible on the reverse. It would appear that the artist's tempera medium has flaked in several areas and the losses have been subsequently retouched with oil paint. The impasto appears to be at times somewhat brittle, with some spots of flaking, most evidently in the orange sail on the left of the composition, in the pale pigments of the island in the upper right and in the dark blue pigments by the right vertical framing edge. Inspection under ultra-violet light reveals strokes of retouching in the upper part of the right framing edge, some spots in the coloured flags in the right edge and in the boat's sail to the left. The painting surface also appears at times uneven, uncovering some old restoration work which does not necessarily fluoresce when inspected under ultra-violet light. This work is ready to hang. Presented in a simple gilt frame.
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Painted circa 1930, the present work is from Vaszary’s best period, characterized by thick, contour lines, bright colours and diagonal perspectives. Vaszary was an excellent colourist and his imaginative art, sensitive to modern trends, merits him an important place in the history of twentieth century Hungarian painting. A pupil of Bertalan Székely at the Budapest School of Decorative Arts, Vaszary moved on to study in Munich and then Paris at the Académie Julian. Experimenting with a wide range of avant-garde artistic styles, from Art Nouveau to Fauvism and Post-Impressionism, it was from the 1920s that Vaszary started developing his distinctive style, inspired by the Ecole de Paris and notably Dufy, Matisse, Derain and Van Dongen.

In the 1930s Vaszary spent many of his summers in Italy, travelling between the Adriatic coast and the resorts of the Riviera. He painted and sketched wherever he could, recording shore scenes, sailing boats, and the increasing number of holidaymakers on the Italian beaches of Rapallo, Venice, or Portorož (also known as Portorose ), a seaside resort in modern-day Slovenia. Whether sketching a group of sailors in a moment of rest on the promenade, or a boat sailing off towards a faraway island, paintings such as the present work convey the joy, the freedom and the carefree state of mind of the Mediterranean way of life.

For a related work see Haulisch Lenke, Vaszary, Budapest, 1978, no. 181.