Memorial plaque of painter Gyula Rudnay

János Gyula Rudnay (Pelsőc, January 9, 1878 – Budapest, January 4, 1957) was a Hungarian painter, graphic artist, industrial artist, college teacher, and founder and leader of the Baja artist colony. ; One of the prominent representatives of the Great Plain School, who continued the realism of Mihály Munkácsy and the plein air style of the Nagybánya school, combining it with post-impressionist elements. Perhaps one of the most prominent representatives of the post-Nagybánya style. ; ; His father, János Rudnay, was a gubacsapó (a wooden sleigh driver), and his mother, Zsuzsanna Gettler. He studied at the School of Applied Arts in Budapest from 1893 to 1894, and then in Munich from 1895 to 1902, at the free school of Simon Hollósy, which also meant that he spent his summers at the Nagybánya artist colony. He went to Rome and Paris. He set the goal of reviving Hungarian tradition, so he lived and created in Hódmezővásárhely in the 1900s, and in 1910 he moved to Pest with his friend, sculptor János Pásztor, and they presented their works to the public. He achieved his first success at his 1918 exhibition. He also gained much recognition abroad. In 1924 he won a gold medal in Vienna, and in 1925 his paintings were successful in Italy, Switzerland, and then in London. In 1934 he was awarded the capital's great gold medal and in 1942 the state's great gold medal. From 1922 he became a teacher at the Budapest Academy of Fine Arts. ; "In my landscape depictions I wanted to evoke the atmosphere of the past of Hungarian history," he wrote. In his paintings we can also find the atmosphere of Rugendas's Kuruckori paintings and elements referring to Goya. Painful nostalgia plays a big role in him. He looks back on vanished eras, which also included the pain of the country torn apart after Trianon. He managed to shape this feeling with solid painterly knowledge, mood-creating imagination, and the unique appeal of his pictures. He was referred to as “yesterday’s artist”, but as happened with Gyula Krúdy in the literary example, this inspiration can also create valuable works. In the galloping, rising and disappearing current of modern isms, his pictures form a retaining, solid and attractive island. ; As a teacher, he was surrounded by his students with respect and love. They appreciated the honest, straightforward person in him, which he depicted with unsophisticated naturalness in his self-portrait. ; In 1947, he was the founder of the Baja artists’ colony.