Gyárfás, Jenő

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(b Sepsiszentgyörgy, Transylvania [now Sfîntu Gheorghe, Romania], April 6, 1857; d Sepsiszentgyörgy, Dec 13, 1925).

Hungarian painter and illustrator. From 1873 he studied at the school for design drawing, Mintarajziskola, Budapest, under Bertalan Székely, and he attended the Akademie der Bildenden Künste in Munich (1877–80). He exhibited genre paintings in Budapest, Munich and Brussels, with considerable success. In 1880 he returned to Hungary, but he could find no buyers for his work. After a study trip to Italy (1882) he withdrew to his birthplace and thereafter played little part in public artistic life.

Gyárfás’s first important work, Testifying before the Corpse (1881; Budapest, N.G.), is based on a poem by János Arany and employs strong chiaroscuro. His paintings couple the depiction of character with an intense sense of drama, the subjects often derived from literature. In his later historical pictures he was unable to repeat his early success. Among his portraits, which display strong realism and concentrated detail, a major work is that of ...