Marczell de Nemes (also von Nemes or de Nemes von Janoshaza)

A singular figure, Marczell de Nemes was one of few Hungarian collectors interested in the art of the Hungarian “Fauves” and Pablo Picasso before the First World War. Born as Mózes Klein, de Nemes changed his name to follow Hungarian customs and made a fortune as an entrepreneur and investor in coal mining and timber. He also acted as an amateur dealer, selling works of art from his large collection. In early 1910, he lent Picasso’s Woman with a Mandolin (1909; State Hermitage Museum, St. Petersburg) to a group exhibition at the Müvészház (Artists’ House) in Budapest, making it possibly the first presentation of the artist’s Cubist work in the region.

De Nemes’s first art purchases date to 1904. Seeking innovation as well as the freshest styles in art, he acquired the work of contemporary Hungarians at the National Salon. Also influencing his taste for new painting was the circle of artists that met at the Café Japan in Budapest, especially József Rippl-Rónai. De Nemes began to frequent their regular gatherings around 1906−07. The collector also purchased Old Master and modern paintings in Munich, Paris, Venice, and Vienna. Among his trusted dealers in Munich were Julius Böhler and the Galerie Heinemann. A visit to Paris in 1910 also allowed him to cultivate relationships with local German-born art dealers Wilhelm Uhde and Daniel-Henry Kahnweiler, from whom de Nemes purchased Picasso’s Woman with a Mandolin and later sold it through him to Sergei Shchukin. De Nemes also likely introduced Hungarian art historian Simon Meller to Kahnweiler around 1910−11; their meeting resulted in a long-lasting friendship.

Numerous exhibitions held in quick succession at the Museum of Fine Arts in Budapest (1909), Müvészház (1910), Alte Pinakothek in Munich (June 1911) and the Kunsthalle Düsseldorf (January 1912) exclusively showcased de Nemes’s collection. The 1910 exhibition included, aside from Picasso’s Woman with a Mandolin, paintings by Paul Cézanne, Edgar Degas, Kees van Dongen, Edouard Manet, Claude Monet, Auguste Renoir, and Georges Rouault, among others. Another exhibition staged that same year included five paintings by El Greco, which brought de Nemes instant international renown and contributed to new interest in the artist’s work. Based on their provenance, de Nemes bought these El Greco canvases from Parisian art dealers and from Böhler in Munich but according to an anecdote, he may have also traveled across remote areas of Spain in search of new works. A year later, de Nemes’s El Greco collection, which had grown to include eight paintings, was shown at Munich’s Alte Pinakothek as part of a larger presentation highlighting Old Master paintings alongside new art. Following this exhibition was a show at the Kunsthalle Düsseldorf that included 122 Old Master and modern paintings from de Nemes’s collection, which by then included ten works by El Greco.

In Budapest, de Nemes provided access to his collection by exhibiting it publicly and by hosting soirées at his residence on Andrássy Street (later in Deák Square). Frequenting these events in the 1910s were local and foreign artists such as Charles-Edouard Jeanneret (known later as Le Corbusier), Béla Lázar, and Rippl-Rónai, as well as art critics and museum experts such as Georg Biermann and August Liebmann Mayer. Such visitors became acquainted with art they had not seen elsewhere: Jeanneret admired de Nemes’s El Greco collection, while Rippl-Rónai saw Picasso’s work; Biermann and Liebmann discovered the work of Hungarian Fauves Béla Czóbel and Károly Kernstock as well as Adolf Fényes, Károly Ferenczy, Rippl-Rónai and others.

Tracing the full details of de Nemes’s collection is difficult because its size and character shifted constantly. Temporary financial strains forced de Nemes to sell parts of his collection at auction several times over the years in Amsterdam, Budapest, Cologne, and Paris. The fall of the Austro-Hungarian Empire in 1918 and continuing political instability also affected de Nemes’s collection. Part of his holdings that had been confiscated in Budapest by the short-lived Hungarian Soviet Republic were returned to the Museum of Fine Arts and later sold at auction in the Hungarian capital in February 1921. By this time, de Nemes had purchased a home in Munich, where he lived from around 1920 until his death in 1930. During this period he formed another collection consisting of Old Master and modern paintings, tapestries, and vestments as well as a significant collection of German Gothic wood sculptures. The amount of debt he left behind in 1930 foiled the wish, as expressed in his will, to create a foundation to benefit artists, journalists, and writers. Public sales of his estate held in Budapest and Munich between 1931 and 1934 did not generate sufficient revenue towards this purpose and to settle what he owed.

Throughout his lifetime, de Nemes donated paintings as well as decorative arts, textiles, and furniture to various Hungarian and European museums, including the Alte Pinakothek in Munich, the Gemäldegalerie in Berlin, the Louvre, and the Prado. For him, artistic patronage—through exhibitions, donations, and scholarships—served as a means to gain social recognition. In 1908, for example, de Nemes received the title of royal councilor in recognition of his donation of four pictures by the Hungarian painter Jakab Bogdány to the Museum of Fine Arts in Budapest. Eight years later, he was given the Imperial Austrian Order of the Iron Crown, third class, in anticipation of future donations to the museum. In 1929, a year before his death, a donation to the Louvre afforded him the recognition of the French Legion of Honour.