Francis de Erdely (Hungarian: Erdélyi Ferenc) (May 3, 1904 – November 28, 1959) was a Hungarian-American artist who was renowned in Europe and the United States for his powerful figure paintings and drawings as well as for his teaching abilities.

Biography

Francis De Erdely was born in Budapest, Hungary in 1904. De Erdely first studied at the Royal Academy of Arts in Budapest (1919–1924), as well as the Real Academia de Bellas Artes de San Fernando (Royal Academy of Fine Arts of San Fernando) in Madrid and the prestigious Sorbonne and Ecole du Louvre in Paris. De Erdely's technical abilities, brushwork, and composition were based in European classicism. Politics began to inform his work when Fascism began to gain ground in Europe. As De Erdely's career developed, he became less focused on history painting and the themes of classical Antiquity. Subjects surrounding war, suffering, and human strength became present. De Erdely immigrated to the United States in 1939. Living in New York and Chicago initially, he was hired to paint portrait of wealthy patrons. He also painted images of the American Scene. It was after his move to Los Angeles, when his mature work developed and he established himself as an American artist. He is best known for his figure-based paintings done in Los Angeles during the 1940s and 1950s of immigrants, laborers, dancers, and social outsiders. It has been argued that this period of his work relate directly to De Erdely's own experience as an immigrant in a new country.

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