User:Hardyfineart/Anna Vertes Gallery & Studio, A History

Anna Vertes, Studio & Gallery, A History Anna Vertes - Artist (nee Viraghalmi) born 21 July 1920, Budapest, Hungary died 26 April 2011 Sydney Australia. Daughter of Paul 11/7/1885-2/9/1960 and Maria (Halasz) 30/5/1891-24/4/1972) Vertes.

Anna Vertes was a dedicated artist, restorer and teacher and her enthusiasm for painting and all things art related was one of the driving passions of her life. She studied enthusiastically and gave her knowledge and skills to many appreciative students over her years in Sydney, influencing many.

An early interest in art led her to an apprenticeship with a bookbinding firm adjoining 14 Lovag Utca, Budapest, a small printing firm, Jupiter Nyomda, owned by Samuel Klein (1882-1967)where she met her future husband George Klein 1909 - perished in the Holocaust, declared deceased 15/10/1944 by the Hungarian Government), son of Samuel Klein and Offer Elizabeth (1885-1936) .

In 1940 they married, and Anna, despite the rampant and virulent anti semitism of the time, followed him into his religion.

The couple travelled to Vienna for Anna to study art prior to the outbreak of World War II. There are no further details of her studies in Europe.

In 1943, her daughter Annamarie was born.

The Klein family did not embrace Anna and her daughter after the war and the death of her husband George and she left the family with great dignity in 1947 to make her own way.

In the early 1950s she met Julius Vertes (1903 Budapest -1972 Sydney).

In 1956 Julius escaped to Austria during the Hungarian Revolution where he lived in Displaced Person Camps in lower Austria until eventually securing a refugee visa for Australia through his brother Steven Vertes (1899-1975) emigrating and arriving in 1957.

A visa was issued in the late 1950s for Anna and her daughter Annamarie to follow Julius to Australia but they were not issued passports by the Hungarian Government until 1964.

On arrival in Australia, Anna set to work and in 1966 she joined the Studio of fellow artist Hungarian Eugene Kohary in Woollahra, Sydney attending classes 1966-1968. She studied restoration, framing and painting technique with Kohary.

In 1968 she enrolled in Randwick Technical College under the tutelage of Jean de Courtenay Isherwood (1911-2006). Isherwood was a painter influenced by the Modernist movement and Vertes studied there until 1969.

In 1970 she founded Anna Vertes Art School, taking students into her home

In 1971, with her husband’s help, though he was already very ill, she opened Anna Art Studio & Gallery on Oxford Street, Paddington, exhibiting her own work and the work of other artists and teaching art students in traditional techniques. Julius died of cancer in 1972.

In 1986 the Studio, School & Gallery moved to Birriga Road Bellevue Hill where she continued teaching and exhibiting her own works. new article content ... From 1970 to 1986 Anna Vertes flourished at the Anna Art Studio and Gallery, throwing herself into her work, teaching, framing and restoration. This is considered the golden time of her career.

She grew in confidence making her own picture frames in elaborate European styles, painting enthusiastically subjects some copied from the great masters illustrated in her extensive library or taken from life and experience. Landscapes evolved from remembered scenes of Hungary through to the new experiences of the Australian landscape and light, using her family’s holidays as perfect subjects to continue honing her skills. She approached still life and the nude with the practiced eye of an artist looking to Europe in the early 20th Century.

Her students enjoyed her tutelage and European experience and ranged from older people looking to escape more mundane lives in the world of painting to school students.

Her work found a popular audience throughout her life and she is apart of many Sydney Collections.

She was listed on the Womens Art Register, Old Taban, Budapest from 1984. She was a NAVA (National Association of Visual Arts) member and was a member of AICCM (Australian Institute for the Conservation of Cultural Materials) from 1994.

Ten works (in slides) were registered with the NSW Ministry for the Arts Slide Register & Database in 1996 and in 1998 /2000 images of her work were reproduced as a backdrop to documentaries on “A Century of Writers” on French Television channel France 3 and TV5

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