The former Austro-Hungarian Monarchy was divided after World War I. As a consequence of the controversial Treaty of Trianon (1920) the Hungarians lost 2/3 of their geographic area and 1/2 of the total population or 1/3 of the Hungarian-speaking population to Romania, Czechoslovakia, and Yugoslavia, including Nagybánya (Bihar County).

Nagybánya, an old mining village gave the name to the artist’s colony of avant–garde painters, called the “Nagybanya Group”. Founded by Simon Hollosy, Istvan Reti and the father of plein-air painting, Károly Ferenczy, in 1896 up to its dissolution in 1937, yielded several generations of art nouveau artists.

They were the first to turn from late 19th century official academic art to an impressionist experimentation with a true love of nature although completely different from any of the schools such as the Julian Academy of Paris or the Munich Academy.

This well-known “plain-air” school of painting, soon attracted painters from all over Europe, who brought various influences of the time: Expressionism, Fauvism and Cubism from Paris and also Munich.