Arts paper by Szabó, Lilla
Independent Scholar

Life and Work of Painters Elizabeth Sass Brunner and Elizabeth Brunner

Type of Abstract (select):

Abstract (max. 250 words):
The life and art of Elizabeth Sass Brunner (Nagykanizsa 1889 - Naini Tal 1950) and her daughter Elizabeth Brunner (Nagykanizsa 1910 - New Delhi 2001), who travelled to India in 1930 upon Rabindranath Tagore's invitation and remained there for life, has become topical for several reasons. It was the exotic appeal of their lives surrounded by legends rather than their painting that has attracted the greatest interest so far. In Rózsa G. Hajnóczy's book The Fire of Bengal a lopsided, biassed picture is given of the two "Bessies" as she called them. In Rózsa G. Hajnóczy's book The Fire of Bengal a lopsided, biassed picture is given of the two "Bessies" as she called them. The fact alone that a little known paintress and her daughter left their small native town Nagykanizsa for India without any preliminary preparations and lived in Rabindranath Tagore's Santiniketan compund kindled the curiosity of generations. That their memory did not sink into oblivion owed to the above mentioned popular novel for a long time.
The deep and close friendship between the Brunners and Rabindranath Tagore, Mahatma Gandhi, Jawaharial Nehru, R. Radhakrishnan, Indira Gandhi or the Dalai Lama and others were often stressed as catalyst in the political relations between the two countries. As regards the viewpoint of art history, hardly any meaningful assessment of their work was done or published.


Brief Professional Bio (max. 100 words):
Lilla Szabó, art historian, was born in Bratislava. She received her degree in History of Art at the Hungarian Language and Literature faculty of the Eötvös Loránd University. She completed her doctorate at the ELTE's History of Art department in 1983; the topic of her dissertation was the medieval architectural history of the Saint Martin coronation church in Bratislava. She has worked at the Hungarian National Gallery since 1979. Since the nineties, her main area of interest has been the cultural relationships within the Central European region during the period between the two world wars and research into the lives and work of Hungarian artists who lived or are still active outside the borders of Hungary in the neighbouring countries and around the world. She publishes regularly, is the author of several monographs and has held many lectures and organised varied exhibitions both in Hungary and internationally. She has spent longer periods abroad completing research in Germany (1988), India (1995; 2003) and the USA (1997; 2009). Fulbright Grand research scholar (2011-2012, New Brunswick).