Portrait of Hollósy Simon by Krizsán János

We are celebrating 166 years since the birth of the painter, pedagogue and founder of Baia Mare School of Painting, Simon Josephus Hollósy (b. February 2, 1857, Sighet, Maramureș County – d. May 8, 1918, Teceu Mare, today in Ukraine), an artistic personality of European stature whom Romanian historiography will call „the master of masters” (Raoul Șorban).

He acquired his artistic training by attending the courses of the Piarist High School in Sighetu Marmației (1864-1872) where he had his first contact with drawing, the Model Drawing School in Budapest (1875-1876) and the Royal Academy of Fine Arts in Munich (1878 -1882).

Settling definitively in the Bavarian metropolis, the painter establishes the private Hollósy Simon Painting School (1886) based on the principles of a modern artistic education, opposed to the Munich academism. The liberal alternative practiced within the school encouraged an artistic education based on the study of nature. According to estimates, the school trained more than 1,000 students from all cultural areas: Romania, Poland, Austria, Germany, Hungary, Switzerland, Denmark, Armenia, USA, India, Japan, Australia, etc.

In 1896, at the beginning of May, Hollósy arrived in Baia Mare with his students at the official invitation of Turman Oliver, the city mayor at the time. In the next six years, he will spend the summer periods in Baia Mare, painting and correcting his students, and the winter periods in Munich.

In his Baia Mare period, Hollósy will practice an art linked to the trends of European modernism, historical compositions and plein-air landscapes under the influence of realism, impressionism and symbolism. In the very year of his arrival in Baia Mare, he created one of his monumental works at the behest of Maramureș County, an identity landmark of the Baia Mare School of Painting, The Hust Citadel.

Simon Hollósy and his students, in Baia Mare 1897

From left to right: Hollósy Simon, Réti István, Iványi-Grünwald Béla, Kubinyi Sándor, Szeremley Gyula, Nyilasy Sándor, Benes Pál, César María Herrer, Horthy Béla, Ferenczy Károly, Ferenczy Valér