“Not only did we try to displace reality; reality was no longer in the object. Reality was in the painting.” Pablo Picasso

The beginning of the 20^th century was a period marked by the rise of avant-garde movements in Hungarian painting as well. The focal point of these innovative efforts was the Nagybánya artists’ colony, where, in 1906, Béla Czóbel, coming home from Paris, presented his works to his fellow artists. By then, Czóbel was already a student of Matisse, and his canvases reflected the vivid colours and clean lines of the paintings of the French Fauvism, which deeply divided the group.