A passion for art

The Dénes Deák Collection in Székesfehérvár

MúzeumCafé 21.

The Deák Collection in Székesfehérvár is unique – indeed its founder was himself unique. Escaping the greyness of 1960s and 1970s socialism, Dénes Deák sought refuge in an earlier middle-class environment. As a distant descendent of the Hatvany-Deutsch family he inherited a love of fine arts. He began with books and reproductions, then using his income as a librarian he started to purchase original etchings. When he received his maternal inheritance he immediately bought three paintings by József Egry, two of which proved to be fakes. From this he learnt that there is no success without preparation, prudence and patience. Finally he became an art dealer, though it was at such a time when in practice it was an unknown profession, indeed was not permitted. Thus Dénes Deák was officially unemployed, which was then considered a crime, but eventually he became a real art collector. His passion was for works by members of the ‘excommunicated’ European School and the progressive Szentendre painters such as Margit Anna, Bélá Czóbel and Jenő Barcsay, who were introduced to him by Iván Dévényi. Later Czóbel painted Deák’s portrait and the collector himself in an interview once acknowledged how the painters had influenced him. Dénes Deák was born in Budapest in 1931, the second child of a wealthy, upper-middle-class family. He wasn’t just a collector, but also a dealer, which provided for his livelihood, but which at the time in Hungary was not regarded as a fitting profession. He didn’t have his own premises, but bought from studios and at markets. He exchanged and sold works and objects of art. Mainly he bought estates. He had a special way with the widows of artists, says art historian Márta Kovalovszky, the museum’s first director. A scholarly catalogue of the collection was published in 2005.