Friends!

Friends! 126 years ago was born Adalbert Erdelyi - Ukrainian painter, whose paintings are one of the most expensive in Ukraine, they are estimated in the tens of thousands of dollars. It was he who in 1920 organized the first exhibition of Transcarpathian artists.

Adalbert was born on the 25th of May, 1891 in the village Zahattia (now - Transcarpathian region). His father Michael Grits was Ukrainian, his mother - Ilona Tsayska was German. He had 10 brothers and sisters. When Adalbert was ten years old, his father changed his surname to Erdelyi (Hungarian). In Transcarpathia, people were used to change their names in Hungarian manner for edge was becoming part of Austria-Hungary.

He studied at the Budapest Academy of Arts. After graduation, he settled in Mukachevo, and then a few years later he moved to Munich. Later he lived in Paris - acquainted with new trends in art, including Impressionism. He could live in Europe and there achieve global recognition for going the same way as other world-famous artists. But he decided to return home to his art to glorify the "land without a name." He came back to Mukachevo, he became a teacher and trained a galaxy of Transcarpathian artists. First Adalbert taught people to draw at the Mukachevo school, then a teachers' seminary in Uzhgorod, in 1945-1955 - the Uzhgorod Art School.

By the mid-1930s Erdelyi drew more than a thousand pictures. He loved his job, gave it a lot of time, but worked out them easily. Soviet totalitarian regime condemned his work - they were too "bourgeois." The authorities criticized him, he did not get any good reviews.

His beloved Magdalene Adalbert met in Uzhgorod in 1933. She was a dancer, 25 years younger than the artist. They lived together for many years, and took the marriage two months before the death of Adalbert, when he was seriously ill.

Magda helped himall the time. In times of Soviet persecution they paid for food by selling pictures. Sometimes the woman herself earned on food for virtuoso playing cards.

Only in 1954, a year before his death, Erdelyi was allowed to organize a solo exhibition in Uzhgorod. A year later the artist died.

Artist’s name apeeared in news again in 2004 - because of the terrible tragedy. In September,to the house of painter, where lived his widow Magdalena Erdelyi, broke bandits. They tied her with electric wires and stole 48 paintings. 88-year-old woman died on the spot from shock. This crime is not disclosed until now.

"Art and Love - is Man self. And when a person expresses itself in these two dimensions, she lives "- said Adalbert Erdelyi. I wish you all to love and make art!