GYULA MIKUS 120 – ARTIST OF THE COMMUNITY

2025. October 17. - November 23. PaintingMikus Gyula

ARTIST OF THE COMMUNITY

We are celebrating the 120th anniversary of the birth of Gyula Mikus, whom many — despite this round number spanning several generations — still remember today. His memory lives on not only in paintings hanging in family homes in and around Keszthely, but also in all the anecdotes passed down from one generation to the next. He himself always took an active part in the life of every community to which he belonged. On this special occasion, his works step out onto the streets and into the heart of the city: the city he longed for, where he lived and worked for half a century.

The core of the exhibition is provided by the Mikus Collection of the Balaton Museum. This year the collection has been enriched with six new works, making their debut here. These key pieces are accompanied by a few privately owned works and by intriguing details: inscriptions and markings found on the backs of the paintings. Old labels, handwritten dedications and notes – items that often remain hidden under traditional exhibition circumstances – all document the journeys of the artworks.

We hope this exhibition offers more than the paintings on view: an entire network of relationships, a community is unfolding before us. We invite you to take part in this shared space.

LANDS, COMMUNITIES

HERD OF PIGS IN THE FOREST AT ZALASZÁNTÓ
around 1950
inv. no.: 54.70. | oil, canvas | 111 × 80 cm

FEEDING THE GEESE “NEW ACQUISITION!”
inv. no.: 2025.1.1. | oil, fiberboard | 72 × 52 cm

NEW ACQUISITIONS

Each of our new acquisitions made in 2025 is marked with a label. The group of pictures acquired this year comes from a local family and their story is woven through with friendship.

‘Zsuzsi,’ the mother of the heir to the paintings, grew up in Keszthely and came to know the Mikus family through family friends. She appears in three of the paintings. In a double portrait, for instance, Zsuzsi is shown together with the painter’s son, little Gábor, reading. Other works were gifted by the artist as a joint Christmas gift to Zsuzsi and her husband. The backs of the paintings hold additional handwritten dedications warmly addressed to the family.

Examples of the inscriptions::
“‘Szigliget Landscape.’ Painted 1966. X. 27. / Gyula Mikus”
“To little Zsuzsi with love! Christmas 1966 / Gy. Mikus”
“With friendship / Christmas 1966”

Zsuzsi Reading “NEW ACQUISITION!”
1965
Inv. no.: 2025.1.5 | oil, fiberboard | 55 × 43 cm

Still Life “NEW ACQUISITION!”
1963
Inv. no.: 2025.1.3 | watercolor, cardboard | 36 × 51 cm

Zsuzsi Reading a Story to Gábor “NEW ACQUISITION!”
1965
Inv. no.: 2025.1.6 | oil, canvas | 57 × 46 cm

STANDING FEMALE FIGURE (ZSUZSI) “NEW ACQUISITION!”
1965
nv. no.: 2025.1.4. | oil, fiberboard | 46.5 × 26 cm

Among these new works is a typical panoramic view of Szigliget, characteristic of Mikus’ Balaton landscapes; as well as a special piece that is a rare exception in his oeuvre: Feeding the Geese bears neither a signature nor a date. On closer stylistic examination, however, elements such as brushwork, use of color, subject, composition – and even the frame! – strongly suggest that it can most likely be linked to the artists’ Zalaszántó period.

This fresh attribution is significant because few works are known from this early painterly period, and most of those, are currently in private collections. Our new acquisitions therefore not only enrich the museum’s collection, but also reveal the intertwining of personal and local memory.

Along with these works, the museum also received some original frames — designed by Mikus himself. These are not only important evidence of authenticity but also integral to the artist’s broader aesthetic vision.

TAPOLCA BASIN

‘VIEW FROM THE STONE NOSE’ – LOOKING OUT OVER THE TAPOLCA BASIN
4 July 1947
inv. no.: 54.51. | watercolor, pen, paper | 27 × 67 cm

BECEHEGY

SZIGLIGET LANDSCAPE “NEW ACQUISITION!”
27 February 1966
inv. no.: 2025.1.2 | oil, fiberboard | 16 × 34 cm

LANDS, COMMUNITIES

Fishermen of Lake Balaton
1960
Inv. no.: 2013.1.74 | reproduction | 40 × 52 cm

In Zalaszántó (a village north of the lake), his artistic focus was mainly centered around community: everyday life of the countryside surrounded by beautiful forests and valleys. From around 1940, in Keszthely, his themes began to shift: Lake Balaton became his primary subject.

He was especially drawn to the scenery from Becehegy, the bay of Szigliget, the Tapolca Basin, and the lake’s long, ever-changing surface. At this time he developed an elongated rectangular panorama format that later became a defining feature of his oeuvre. On these boards and canvases, human figures gradually move to the periphery, at times they disappear altogether. Yet the motif of community never left him: for Mikus, landscape and human presence were inseparable.

He maintained close ties to different members of the community. Together with Károly Sági, the museum’s archaeologist, they wandered among the region’s historical sights. The fishermen of Keszthely granted him access to their base, allowing him to study the lake’s constantly changing colours and lights any time he likes.

Anglers’ Lodge
1953
Inv. no.: 88.59 | oil, canvas | 80 × 104 cm

His wide-ranging interests also reflected in his technical variety. Alongside oil and watercolor painting, he modeled and carved sculpture, and made prints. His best-known woodcut, Fishermen of Lake Balaton, survives in the museum as a reproduction from the collection of his sailor-painter friend József Reichstetter. The connection could be no accident: Reichstetter was likewise a progressive, self-taught painter who also made his own prints, often capturing scattered rays of sunlight playing on the water.

József Reichstetter – Motel Beach (1971)
Inv. no.: 72.672 | woodcut | 15 × 15 cm
József Reichstetter – Jetty with Boats (1971)
Inv. no.: 72.673 | woodcut | 7 × 7 cm

COMMUNITY AND MEMORY

Ferenc Boér – Study for a Painter’s Portrait (before 1978)
Inv. no.: 81.22 | oil, fiberboard | 140 × 98 cm

Throughout his life Gyula Mikus was surrounded by friends, colleagues, admirers and students. Among others, his portrait was painted by Ferenc Boér, a retired forestry director and self-taught artist. Although Boér’s work is more often associated with conceptual and modernist tendencies, he regarded Mikus as an important forerunner. For Boér, Mikus embodied the archetype of “the painter” – a memory he preserved within his own geometric-abstract visual language.

Zoltán Zombory – Portrait of Gyula Mikus (11 September 1989)
in private ownership | oil, canvas | 41 × 61 cm

Zoltán Zombory painted the master’s late-life portrait. Zombory, who graduated in Keszthely, remained attached to the city throughout his life out of his love for the region and his childhood home. Like Mikus, he worked not only in watercolor and oil but also in sculpture. He created the portrait in his own characteristic style — soft, broad brushstrokes and muted colours of his latter period — depicting the painter in his signature painting attire.

MEMORY

József Koszta – a friend and recognized artist of his time – helped facilitate Mikus’s permanent move to Keszthely in 1942. The story goes that after visiting him in Zalaszántó, admiring all the paintings and sculptures there, he said: ‘My God, what a talent! If only he could go to Paris for a year!’ Mikus modestly replied: ‘I would only like to go to Keszthely…’

Snow Shower (back side)
1968
Inv. no.: 77.1 | oil, cardboard | 70 × 100 cm

Snow Shower is one of the most frequently exhibited works in this collection: it toured the country, traveled to the German Democratic Republic, and in 1973 earned him the prestigious Egry József Prize. Among the many notes on the back of the painting, however, the phrases “Property of the Balaton Museum,” “It stays here!” and “Keszthely” are given the greatest emphasis.

 

Snow Shower
“1968
Inv. no.: 77.1 | oil, cardboard | 70 × 100 cm”

EXHIBITION MANAGER
Péter Németh
museum director

CURATOR
Virág Liliána Papp
art historian-museologist

PHOTOGRAPHY
Viktor Kiss

PREPRESS:
Csaba Novák

PRESS
Ziegler Printing Ltd.

SUPPORT
Special thanks to the City of Keszthely, to Goldmark Károly Művelődésiház, Gábor Mikus, and to the lenders of privately owned works and their families.