Description:

Zoltan Sepeshy
Michigan / Hungary, (1898 - 1974)
coastal pier
watercolor on paper
signed lower right.

Biography from Muskegon Museum of Art

The following biographical information, published on Traditional Fine Arts Online, (www.tfaoi.com) is written by James Houghton, and dated February 7, 2002 for the Muskegon Museum of Art's exhibition: "Zoltan Sepeshy Remembered". Houghton is Curator of Collections and Exhibitions at the Museum.

From the mid-1930s through the late 1940s, Zoltan Sepeshy had numerous exhibitions in New York, garnering favorable reviews, and at art museums, especially in the Midwest, including the Toledo Museum of Art, the Butler Institute of American Art in Youngstown, Ohio, and the Milwaukee Art Museum. He was the recipient of several prestigious awards for painting. Museums such as the Art Institute of Chicago and the Detroit Institute of Arts, avidly collected his work.

Sepeshy's art exemplifies changing directions and concerns of American art from the 1920s through the 1950s. At the same time, the singularity of his vision can be seen in an examination of his techniques, imagery, and ideas. The key to understanding his achievement is his belief that the foundation for art was its humanity: "art arises from the common needs and aspirations of all men and that compartmentalization is a hindrance to its growth." Further, his work demonstrates he was always experimenting, broadening his vision to resist compartmentalization, which he saw as the stagnating confinement of the formulaic and cliché.

Sepeshy also was important as a teacher and an administrator. In 1931, he became the painting instructor at the Cranbrook Academy of Art*, Bloomfield Hills, Michigan. In 1947, after Eliel Saarinen's death, he became Director of Cranbrook, and then in 1957, its President, determining the direction of the institution until he retired in 1966.

The Muskegon Museum of Art first acquired a work by Zoltan Sepeshy in 1956, which was a gift of the J.L. Hudson Co. on the occasion of the firm's 75th Anniversary; the painting had first been seen at the Muskegon Museum of Art in 1948-49, as part of the "Michigan on Canvas" project and exhibition organized by J.L. Hudson Co. Later, the Museum received additional paintings and drawings. These include the painting titled Noon in a Spanish Village, which was given by A. Harold Frauenthal in 1969; a tempera on panel painting titled Portrait of Albert DeSalle, and a figure study drawing, both of which were Gifts of Friends of Art in 1989; and a charcoal drawing self-portrait, given by Michael Sepeshy.

Indeed, the relationship of the artist to the Muskegon Museum of Art has been reinforced by the long-time presence of Zoltan Sepeshy's son, Michael, and his family, in West Michigan. Michael Sepeshy has been a supporter and friend of the MMA for years. Michael and his family have been generously supportive in the assembly of this exhibition.

  • Dimensions: 9 3/4"H x 13"W, attached to board.
  • Medium: watercolor on paper

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