Biography

János Vaszary was born in 1867 in Kaposvár. He started his studies in the drawing school as a pupil of Bertalan Székely and János Greguss. After 1887 he learnt from Hackl and von Löfflitz in Munich. In 1899 he enrolled to the Julian Academy in Paris. Simon Hollósy and the ‘Nagybánya’ artist colony (modern Hungarian painting initiating movement) had great influence on him.

His early works were secession style tapestries, with Hungarian folk art motifs. Later he returned to the realist-naturalist genre paintings. In the second half of the 1900s the impact of the French impressionism was felt on his paintings and then, he came under the influence of Raoul Dufy and Kees van Dongen. From the 1910s he often stayed in his studio in Tata. During the Second World War he painted dramatic images about the front, on these works were most noticeable the effect of the German Expressionists. However, shortly after the war, he traveled to Paris and returned to the French painting tradition. 

From 1920, to ten years, he was the teacher of the Hungarian College of Fine Arts, - which was reorganized by Károly Lyka, - he retired in 1932. From 1923 he was the founding member and president of the New Artists Association, and in 1924 he was one of the founding members of the New Society of Artists. In 1926 he received an order for painting murals from the Biological Institute of Tihany. 

Vaszary was exhibiting artist before his age of twenty in the National Salon (1898, 1902, 1906, 1912); In 1912, he also exhibited in the Artists House. In 1909, 1920 and in 1924 he had exhibition in the Ernst Museum. In 1922 the Helicon Salon organized collective exhibition from his works. In 1928 he took part in the New Artists Association exhibition. Vasary organized the layout of the Hungarian works on the XVI. Venice international exhibition in 1928, and in recognition of his works he was awarded by the Italian state Prize. On the New Society of Artist debut in Genoa he got gold medal, his ‘Sea bathing’ titled painting was bought by the Nervi Museum. In 1933 he had collection exhibition in the Déri Museum.