Mihály Munkácsy

Mihály Munkácsy (Hungarian pronunciation: [ˈmihaːj ˈmuŋkaːtʃi]; 20 February 1844 – 1 May 1900) was a Hungarian painter. He earned international reputation with his genre pictures and large-scale biblical paintings.

Munkácsy was born as Mihály Leó Lieb (Hungarian: Lieb Mihály Leó) to Mihály Lieb, a bureaucrat of Bavarian origin, and Cecília Reök, in Munkács, Hungary, Austrian Empire, the town from which he later adopted his pseudonym.

After being apprenticed to itinerant painter Elek Szamossy, Munkácsy went to Pest, the largest city in Hungary (now part of Budapest), where he sought the patronage of established artists.

With the help of the landscape artist Antal Ligeti, he received a state grant to study abroad. In 1865, he studied at the Academy of Vienna under Karl Rahl. In 1866, he studied at the Munich Academy, and in 1868 he moved to the Kunstakademie Düsseldorf to study with the popular genre painter Ludwig Knaus. In 1867, he travelled to Paris to see the Universal Exposition.

After his Paris trip, his style became lighter, with broader brushstrokes and tonal colour schemes - he was probably influenced by modern French painting seen at the Exposition.