Peasant (1925)

Hanna Mela, who was born in Arad, graduated from the Academy of Fine Arts in the 1920s under the guidance of Gyula Rudnay. She visited the Great Plain several times and enjoyed depicting its world. In her early period, her paintings of Martély were done in a realistic style. Her large-scale painting, the Peasant from 1925 still retains the influence of her master, but her use of colour and brushwork already suggest the influence of contemporary women artists (e.g. Eszter Mattioni, Józsa Járitz). Not much of her work survived between the two world wars, as his studio was bombed in January 1945 and much of it was destroyed.