Woman with Three Girls

Inspired by avant-garde techniques he observed while living in Paris in the last decade of the nineteenth century, József Rippl-Rónai developed a style that juxtaposed daubs of bright colors and compressed the figures, furnishings, and patterns of his tapestry-like paintings into a single plane. When he returned to Hungary in 1901, he combined these formal innovations with elements that would reflect a distinctive, modern Hungarian style. Here, he includes embroidered textiles and a still life of tulips, which were traditional symbols of Hungarian culture and identity.