Vilmos Aba-Novák

He was also the celebrated author of frescoes and church murals at Szeged and Budapest,[2] and was officially patronized by the Hungarian nobility.

The virtuoso style of his late paintings incorporated elements of expressionism and the formal language of the Italian Novecento.

It is characterized by dynamic compositions painted with loud colors, inspired by monuments; his favorite subject was the world of the village fair and the circus.

He lived his childhood in Krisztinaváros and started going to the flea market at an early age, where he bought drawing tools.

[1] His studies, which had barely begun, were interrupted by the war, and in October 1914 he enlisted in the 29th Home Guard Regiment.

He received numerous awards, however, according to his diary, he considered the war to be completely pointless and an obstacle to his artistic ambitions.

Completing his service in the Austro-Hungarian Army on the Eastern Front during World War I, he took up drawing with Viktor Olgyai.

In 1926, at the first Spring Exhibition in the National Salon, he won the grand prize of the Szinyei Merse Pál Society for graphics with his etching Girolamo Savonarola.

In 1928, he was elected one of the members of the Pál Merse Szinyei Society and became a teacher at the Free School of Fine Arts in Belváros.

1936 is the year of birth of the paintings of the Heroes' Gate in Szeged (with Henrik Stefan, Mihály Patay and János Rozs).

Aba Novák painted many frescoes for the Roman Catholic Church of Jászszentandrás, and Hősök Kapuja (Heroes' Gate - a rare Hungarian example of novecento architecture, commemorating World War I soldiers) in Szeged in 1936 (the latter was white-washed after 1945, restored between 1986 and 2000), and painted many commissions for the Hungarian government.