In the room (1906)

Ferenc Lehel attended the Mintarajziskola in Budapest, then continued his studies of painting first in Nagybánya, then in Munich and Paris, with brief stays in Italy. He gave up painting at an early age and took up journalism and art history. He was a regular contributor of articles and essays to the magazines A Hét, Az Újság, and Múlt és Jövő. He was one of the discoverers, an enthusiastic supporter and the first monographer of Tivadar Kosztka Csontváry and Lajos Gulácsy. From 1924 he lived briefly in Paris. In 1934-35 he started a one-man magazine in Budapest under the title Nemzeti Művészet (National Art). In 1939, he emigrated to England to escape fascism and then lived for a few years in Brazil. After the war he returned to Europe, working mainly in London and occasionally in Rome, publishing his writings in magazines and books in English, Italian and other languages.  He was concerned with theoretical and methodological issues, was the first to apply the structuralist method in art history, and was interested in the relationship between art and patography. 

According to the list of painters who visited Nagybánya compiled by István Réti, Lehel visited the town in 1904 and 1906. The former is attested by a painting by Béla Czóbel, in which Lehel, standing with his back to the viewer, looks confidently towards the well-known tower of the Reformed Church in Nagybánya. 1904 saw the emergence of the "neo-Neos" in Nagybánya, so to speak, when young people who had been to Paris (Czóbel, Perlrott, Tihanyi, Galimberti, Boromisza, etc.) rebelled against their perceived conservative masters and in favour of progressive art. Few of Lehel's works are known today. His paintings were often shown in exhibitions in Budapest in the years before the First World War. He also participated in the 1913 inaugural exhibition of the Művészház with a landscape painting; the reproduction of the work in the catalogue suggests considerable artistic qualities. In the 23 January 1913 issue of Világ, György Bölöni commemorated the Kunsthaus exhibition, and the article listed Lehel among the best of the exhibiting artists (Rippl-Rónai, Kernstok, Márffy, József Egry, Márk Vedres, Medgyessy, etc.). The 'theme' of his 1906 painting of the room interior with its grey bearded man might remind us of Rippl-Rónai's paintings of Uncle Piacsek, but unlike their garishly coloured 'corn-style', Lehel's work is much more puritan. It's not so much the furnishing of the room as the brush and colour treatment. Moreover, in contrast to the old Piacs, who often doze off, the man shown here is active, visibly at work. But also striking in contrast to the Great Banians is Lehel's colour palette, which is subdued, pastel colours, with dark and light in sharp contrast.