Description
Vilmos Aba-Novák was a Hungarian painter and graphic artist. He was an original representative of modern art in his country, and specifically of his modern monumental painting. He was also the celebrated author of frescoes and murals for churches in Szeged and Budapest, and was officially patronized by the Hungarian nobility.
Novák was born in Budapest, Hungary, where he would also die. His father was Gyula Novák and his mother Rosa Waginger (Hungarian: Waginger Róza from Vienna.
After studying at the School of Art until 1912, he began to work with Adolf Fényes. Between 1912 and 1914, Novák studied at the Faculty of Fine Arts in Budapest. Completing his service in the Austro-Hungarian Army on the Eastern Front during World War I, he devoted himself to drawing at Viktor Olgyai. Aba Novak was particularly interested in the circuses and village fair markets that appeared in his early paintings in the vivid colors of Italian expressionism and novocento.
Between 1921 and 1923, he spent his summers with the group of artists in Szolnok and Baia Mare (Nagybánya), Romania, exhibiting for the first time in 1924. He was sent by the Hungarian Academy as a fellow to Rome (1928 and 1930), and he became a recognized representative of the so-called "Roman School" in Hungarian painting.
Aba Novák painted many frescoes for the Roman Catholic church of Jászszentandrás and Hõsök Kapuja in Szeged in 1936 (the latter was whitewashed after 1945) and painted many commissions for the Hungarian government [1]. Aba also worked on the frescoes for St. Stephen's Mausoleum in Székesfehérvár and the Városmajor Church, Budapest, in 1938. He was awarded the Grand Prize of the jury at the 1937 Paris World's Fair and the 1940 Venice Biennale.
He was a professor at the Faculty of Fine Arts from 1939 until his death.