Philip de Laszlo: A Turning Point

"An Italian Girl in Her National Costume"
by Philip de Laszlo

Philip de Laszlo wrote: "My employer Strelisky let me study at the School of Arts and Crafts three times a week, on Sunday mornings and two evenings. Despite the few hours at my disposal, I tried to be the best of the pupils. At first I drew ornamental motifs from plaster reliefs. To free myself of the monotony of my daily work I spent all my spare time in drawing and began to use colours. I was also able to be of real assistance to my mother, as I was now earning twenty-five florins a month.

One day, soon after I was sixteen, Dr. Videky asked me to lunch with him, a great honour. He told me that the school was taking part in the first Hungarian National Exhibition, and that he intended to send in examples of his students' work.  He said that he didn't have enough good work to submit and asked if I would go to the school every evening from eight to ten to draw special subjects which he would set. I could have wished for nothing better. I was surrounded by life-size casts of famous Greek and Roman sculptures. They seemed to move in the dark shadows. I drew heads of Moses, Michaelangelo, Cicero, Mars, Nero, Venus de Milo, the Sleeping Slave and others. My last drawing was one of a real skull, which used to give me an uneasy feeling, for it seemed to grin at me. 

The exhibition opened with the King and his ministers present. I had an entrance card for myself and my parents. When we came to the cases where the drawings chosen by Videky were exhibited, I felt intensely proud to see mine there. This was the encouragement I needed and an incentive to go on studying so that I could free myself from the photographic work. 

Dr. Videky was so pleased with my success at the exhibition that he suggested I should try to get into the Academy of Arts, which in Hungary is a national institution and ranks with the university educationally. I knew that I had not the necessary education qualifications for entrance since I had left school during fourth grade, but Dr. Videky gave me an introduction to the president of the academy, who granted me an interview.

With patience and evident interest he examined my large collection of drawings. Some were those I had done at the School of Arts and Crafts, others were studies I had made of peasants from life. After he had looked through them he told us that he would make an exception in my case and admit me to the Academy as a part-time student. That was a great moment for me. It was the first turning-point in my career. After this I continued to work part time at Strelisky's retouching five or six photographs a day in order to earn money, and in the evenings I studied anatomy from the works of Leonardo da Vinci, modelling and perspective - and in my free time I was trying to paint in oils."

To be continued

(Excerpts from "Portrait of a Painter" by Owen Rutter.)