István Szőnyi’s home and the ‘Triznya inn’ under the same roof
Danube Bend painter’s memorial museum in Zebegény
MúzeumCafé 39.
István Szőnyi lived and worked in a porticoed house on the main street of Zebegény. Only a few people had the opportunity to step into the painter’s home and experience the solitude of his studio, and even fewer were able to see how the artist created his paintings from the first brushstroke to the last. Yet, thanks to the foresight of his daughter Zsuzsa, you can now enter the artist’s home. The house, which today is a museum, has not changed for 48 years. It is as if it was still lived in, except there is no sound coming from the radio. However, on entering the museum it is immediately clear that a new era has recently begun. In 2013 the István Szőnyi Memorial Museum experienced major changes. It reopened for visitors, renewed but with its old atmosphere, last October. Its history goes back to 1905 when József Bartóky, father of the painter’s future wife Melinda, bought the house. Bartóky was born in Békéscsaba and served as a local administrator in Orosháza. Later he worked as a state secretary in Budapest for ten years, while all the time dreaming about becoming a writer. The dream came true. In retirement he wrote some 20 volumes, of which several can be found in the museum. The museum staff came across his portrait in the storeroom. It has been restored and is displayed with his ceremonial sword by the entrance. Zsuzsa Szőnyi and her husband went to Rome in February 1949. Soon after co-tenants were moved into the painter’s apartment in Budapest. István Szőnyi, who had recently been awarded the Kossuth Prize, and his wife moved to Zebegény in the hope of a new life. They furnished the house in its present form, bringing much of the furniture from the capital. The corner room was the bedroom, where the exhibition curators have displayed portraits of the family members and the painting of a nude washing. Zsuzsa’s brother Péter, a talented photographer, died at the age of 19. His tragic death shattered the whole family. His mother never got over her loss, wearing black to the end of her life. A photograph of Péter is exhibited among the family portraits. A giraffe piano, a rarity, the Bartóky family’s musical instrument from the 19th century, is displayed in this room. In the living room opening from the bedroom a central place is given to the radio, which played a very important role in the Szőnyis’ life. It enabled them to receive broadcasts from Rome and listen to their daughter, who was a newsreader. That was how they ‘kept in touch’. The painting Garden Bench is also exhibited in the living room. It was the painter’s wedding present to Zsusza and Mátyás in 1943. The garden still contains the bench depicted in the painting. This room houses Szőnyi’s paintings in gouache created in Zebegény, which already display the ‘Szőnyi voice’ woven through with light. The tempora-ry exhibition Hidden Works of Szőnyi, is staged in the room to the right of the entrance. It contains drawings that the painter’s daughter kept in her bed linen drawer. This exhibition relaunched the museum. Whenever Szőnyi wrote a letter to Zsuzsa and her husband he always accompanied it with a drawing. The exhibition features those drawings, as well as three panels which adorned the walls of the apartment in Rome. The small studio upstairs has been turned into an open display storeroom containing the unexhibited works and the framing workshop. A portrait of Gyula Földesi, a secondary school teacher who discovered and supported the painter, hangs on the wall. The same floor houses the large studio which Szőnyi furnished in the summer of 1960 – that was when he moved everything from Budapest. The last photograph shows the already ill painter working in his new studio. István Szőnyi died on 30 August 1960. Ten days before his death he was still preparing for an exhibition of works he painted during his visit to his daughter in Italy. Following his death, his widow lived in the house for a further seven years. Then his daughter, giving up her inheritance, agreed that the building together with the works and furniture would become a memorial museum. The legacy has been looked after – the furniture, the silver, sets of glasses even the tiniest tools have remained intact. The other, entirely new exhibition in the former garage is devoted to the happy life of the painter’s daughter, Zsuzsa, and her husband Mátyás Triznya. It displays an armchair from the living room, Zsuzsa Sző-nyi’s encyclopaedia in her cabinet, as well as their tennis rackets that were found in a box. Buildings in Rome was the main theme of her husband’s watercolours exhibited in the room. Photographs and letters can be seen on István Szőnyi’s desk. They include Zsuzsa’s correspondence with the writer Sándor Márai. Zsuzsa Szőnyi’s awards are displayed in a separate cabinet. At the end there is the visitors’ book from Mátyás Triznya’s old exhibitions, which today again awaits visitors’ comments.