Časopis ARS 41 (2008) 1

Jana ŠVANTNEROVÁ

Po stopách maliara Leopolda Horovitza
[Tracing the Steps of Painter Leopold Horovitz]

(Resumé)

The article attempts to summarize the work and life of painter Leopold Horovitz developed in 2004 – 2007 as an MA thesis project at the Department of Art History, Comenius University in Bratislava. The research began with sparse art historical letters dedicated to the artist. The substantial part of the study was developed from works of art in public and private collections; the study of contemporary Hungarian, Austrian, and Polish press commenting on Horovitz’s work, mainly his commissions; and last but not least genealogical studies. In order to accomplish the goal, the author visited Košice, Cracow, Warsaw, Wroclaw, Vienna, Budapest, Nörrkoping, Paris, Tel Aviv, Ein Harod, Lvov and many other locations associated with Horovitz’s career, works, his family and descendants. “The overall summary of his work only an outstanding writer can master,” (D. Kohn in Dr. Bloch’s Österreichische Wochensschrift, 8. 11. 1918, No. 44, p. 710.) stated the Viennese art critic after he visited the first retrospective exhibition of Leopold Horovitz in Vienna in 1918. He commented on the state of distribution of Horovitz’s works, as they are scattered all over Europe and almost impossible to organize into a collection representing a satisfying survey of his artistic activity. The situation did not improve until 1938, when the Košice retrospective exhibition offered a representative summary of his academic classicism-based work representing early examples from Košice in the late 1850s until his death in Vienna. World War II brought chaos among state and private collections, and Horovitz’s work stayed on the fringes of attention of art historians.

Currently only 29 paintings attributed to L. Horovitz can be found in Slovak museums and galleries, and some items turned out to be incorrectly identified. As example “Woman in Bath” (East Slovakia Gallery, Košice), painted by Horovitz, used to be attributed to the painter’s daughter Janina Horovitz. In the Polish, Hungarian, French, Swedish, and Israeli collections, one can find 119 works accredited to L. Horovitz, mostly original paintings, photographs, or reproductions (prints) of particular famous works. But also here, I detected some examples of wrong identifications, dating, copies and even falsifications.

The main reason of this inauspicious state of play was an insufficient attention toward Horovitz among Slovak, Austrian, and Hungarian art historians. Only basic, regularly repeated information about him appears in various general or specialized compendia. Serious art historians working with 19th century fine arts in what is nowadays Slovakia like Karol Vaculík (19th Century Painting in Slovakia. Bratislava 1956) and Ladislav Saučin (Elemír Halász-Hradil and the Art of His Epoch. Bratislava 1962; Slovak Painting, Graphic and Sculpture. Bratislava 1973) did not pay much attention to Horovitz. Information given by them on Horovitz’s artistic origins and a lack of quoted sources make their accounts inaccurate and misleading. On the other hand, the work of Maria Mihóková based on the detailed research of the contemporary press in Košice (Fine Arts, Life and Building Development in Košice during the Years 1848 – 1918. A Thematic Bibliography. Košice 1986) was therefore a positive surprise. The artistic production of 19th century Poland was explored from various viewpoints by Jerzy Malinowski (Polish Painting of the 19th Century. Warsaw 2003; Painting and Sculpture by Polish Jews in the 19th and 20th Century. Warsaw 2000), Maria Poprzęcka focused on the Polish Salon Painting (Warsaw 1991) and Janina Wiercińska carried out a detailed research on particular artists exhibiting in the Society for fine art encouragement (Towarzystwo zachęty sztuk pięknych) in Warsaw (Catalogue of the Exhibited Items in the Society For Visual Art Encouragement in Warsaw during the Years 1860 – 1914. Warsaw 1969). Next, thanks to Ludwig Grajewski all illustrations published in the Polish press during the 19th century until the year 1918 were listed (Bibliography of the Illustrations Published in the Polish Magazines during the 19th Century until 1918. Warsaw 1972). It is important to mention that it is the Polish researchers who have played a major role in documenting the artistic activity of Leopold Horovitz, even if they focus mostly on his work during his Warsaw residence.

In comparison to the Polish literature, the Hungarian letters seem to have overlooked Horovitz. Júlia Szabó in her publication (Painting in 19th Century Hungary. Budapest 1985) made no mention about the painter even though he was born and active in the Austro-Hungarian Empire. There are other relevant publications, which deserve attention, namely Gyula Fleischer’s Magyárok a bécsi képzóművészeti akademián (Budapest 1935), Carl von Lüztow’s Geschichte der Kais. Kön. Akademie der bildenden Künste. Festschrift zur Eröffnung des neuen Akademie-Gebäundes (Vienna 1877) and Walter Wagner’s Die Geschichte der Akademie der Bildenden Künste in Wien (Vienna 1967). Ludwig Hevesi’s Österreichische Kunst im 19. Jahrhundert (Leipzig 1903), Die Pflege der Kunst in Österreich 1848 – 1898 (Vienna 1900), and finally Altkunst-Neukunst Wien 1894 – 1908 (Vienna 1909) should also be mentioned. Other important details concerning the life and activity of L. Horovitz had to be found in various archives and libraries, for example, in Magyar Tudományos Akadémia, Művészettörténeti dokumentációs központ in Budapest; Jagiellonian Library in Cracow; and national libraries in Warsaw, Budapest, Vienna, and the Polish Library in Paris.

Apart from the important data concerning Horovitz’s work, an in-depth research was done on his genealogy. It turned out that his two childless daughters, Stephania and Janina, died during the holocaust along with their sister Zofia. Descendents of Zofia living in Poland did not know about their relatives, descendents of two Horovitz’s sons, Armin and Georg, living in Sweden, Israel, and Canada. Thus, tracing the painter’s life has surprisingly resulted in reunification of his grand- and great grandchildren.

The present article follows the chronological line of L. Horovitz’s life. The first chapter informs about his studies in Košice and Vienna, while the second one brings characteristics of his first stay in Warsaw and later in Paris. The following three chapters map three cities closely connected with Horovitz’s activity. During his second stay in Warsaw, he developed and demonstrated his talent for portrait and genre painting. In Budapest, he made use of mastering the knowledge of academic portrait painting. His career victoriously concluded in Vienna where he belonged to the circle of artists gathered around the court of the Emperor Franz Joseph I. The sixth chapter comments on the artist’s self-portraits. The final chapter deals with two retrospective exhibitions of Horovitz’s work organized in Vienna (1918) and in Košice (1938).

It was in Košice where Horovitz encountered Biedermeier and the academic art tradition presented by his first teacher Imrich Roth. This inclination was afterwards strengthened during his studies at the Academy of Fine Arts in Vienna thanks to professors Karl Blaas, Karl Mayer, and Carl Wurzinger. His famous portrait of “Tinker” (1857) dates to this period. It is an example of a portrait breast-piece on the neutral monochromatic background which became the leitmotif of Horovitz’s later work as we can find it on family portraits from that period (“Portrait of father Herman Horovitz”) and later portraits of his Warsaw clients (“Potrait of Jadwiga Dembowska”, 1862). After his short stay in Warsaw in the early 1860s, Horovitz left for Paris, where he directly jumped into the artistic revolt of Eduard Manet’s circle. Although Parisian experience helped the young artist to improve while exhibiting at the famous Salon for six years, it did not change his perspective at all. He clung to academic painting, mostly portrait but genre, too. Among his most famous genre paintings from this period belongs “Coquette sans le savoir” (1868). After Horovitz returned to Warsaw in 1868, he painted several other genre pictures inspired by the life of Orthodox Jews (“Teacher”, 1869; “Tisha BeAv”, 1870). Following these were successful genre paintings with children as motifs (“Harmless war”, around 1873; “Firstborn”, 1885), yet his portraits predominated. Influenced by outstanding contemporary painters like Jan Matejko, Henryk Rodakowski, Tadeusz Adjukiewicz, and Władysław Bakałowicz, Horovitz innovated his rather monothematic portrait breast-piece compositions. Portraits of count F. F. Teodor Berg (1874), Karolina Janina Wereszczakowa (1883), Adam Mickiewicz (1889), Izabela Sanguszko (1889) and Helena Szimanowska-Brunicka (1895) render whole standing or sitting figures on various backgrounds related to their social status. Horovitz paid enhanced attention to face and hands, while the rest of the portrait generally remained unfinished. Without any doubt, Horovitz was always meeting the wishes of his high-class clients; he managed to make ladies look decent and charming while gentlemen were posed proudly and even heroic. His services were sought after in many European cities like Munich, Dresden, Berlin, Vienna, and Budapest. During his short residence in Budapest, he portrayed several outstanding personalities of the Hungarian cultural and political life (writer János Arany, 1887; archeologist and museum director Ferencz Aurel Pulszky, 1890; Prime Minister Koloman Tisza, 1894). These works made him more and more famous all around the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy. In 1896, he moved with the whole family to Vienna to create a portrait of the Emperor Franz Joseph I. (“Portrait in an English uniform”). Horovitz’s talent for modest idealization insured him lucrative commissions from Viennese high society and so he joined the group of court painters represented by Friedrich von Amerling, Hans Makart, and Hans Canon. In 1899, he achieved his biggest success by portraying the tragically departed Empress Elisabeth (so called Sissi), beloved and admired by many people. At the age of sixty-one he was recognized as an academic painter closely following the legacy of previous generations up to Rembrandt, whom he admired as his greatest example. Just like Rembrandt, Horovitz liked to paint self-portraits, although he did not explore Rembrandt’s example of variety; they all have very similar composition and atmosphere. Only a few known portraits of Horovitz’s family members are known. Among the best ones are portraits of his daughters Zofia (1897) and Stephania (1907). Toward the end of his life, Horovitz obviously found his way back to the genre painting, while one of his last pictures was genre a portrait of young Copernicus staring on the night sky.

According to the general opinion of 19th century, Horovitz’s family life would be a perfect one and his carrier pure success. On the other side, looking through modern lenses, Horovitz may seem to represent a painter who overlooked two major changes in art history, the impressionism in Paris and the Secession movement in Vienna. During his whole life, Leopold Horovitz stayed a strong adherent of academic classicism.

English by author