Poor folks' lunch

Adolf Fényes was born in Kecskemét, Hungary in 1867. He was one of his country’s most distinguished Jewish painters. The motifs of his works can be considered a metonym for the struggle to create a Hungarian Jewish identity, particularly during the decades immediately before and following World War I. Before completing law school, however, he enrolled at the leading Budapest institute of design. Fényes then studied for three years in Weimar with Max Thedy, and spent a year at the Julien Academy in Paris. Under the tutelage of his mentors, he embraced the naturalist style and quickly emerged as one of the most significant painters of the Nagybánya school. By the end of the 1920s, Fényes’ artistic career was nearing its end. Along with other Hungarian Jews, he faced increasingly harsh restrictions imposed by the antisemitic Horthy government that impeded his ability to paint. Interned in a forced labor camp in the 1930s, Fényes died of starvation at the close of World War II.