Gyula Benczúr (1844-1920) * Hungarian painter

Gyula Benczúr (1844-1920) was born on January 28, 1844 in Nyíregyháza, the son of Vilmos Benczúr (1811-1873) and Paulina Laszgallner (1815-1885). His family moved to Košice in 1846. During his high school years, he began painting and drawing at the private drawing school of Ferenc Klimkovics and Béla Klimkovics in Košice. From 1861, he was a student of Hermann Anschütz at the Academy of Fine Arts in Munich, and then from 1865 to 1869, he was a student of Karl von Piloty. In 1869, he went on a study trip to Italy and in 1874 to France.
In 1873 he married the sister of his artist friend, Karolina Max. They had four children. After his wife's death (1890), he remarried in 1892, his second wife being Piroska Ürmössy Boldizsár, a teacher at the Budapest State Teachers' College.
From the mid-1870s, he spent his summers in Ambach near Lake Starnberg, where his summer house was built in 1885 based on the designs of his younger brother, Béla Benczúr.
From 1876 to 1883 he taught at the Munich Academy. Upon his return home he founded the first Hungarian art school, the Benczúr Master School, which he directed until his death. He was already a recognized and respected painter during his lifetime. In 1906 he became an heir to the House of the Grand Order, and in 1910 he became an honorary member of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences.
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