Ernő Bánk

Ernő Bánk (1883, Szalmatercs - 1962, Budapest) was a Hungarian teacher painter noted for his minitature portraits. He was an exhibitor member of the Association of Hungarian Watercolour and Pastel Painters.

Bánk originally received an elementary teaching degree and became a qualified teacher for secondary education in his younger years. In 1915 he received the doctoral title as a geography and history graduate at the Budapest Pázmány Péter University. At the same time in the 1910s he studied painting under the guidance of Henrik Pap and Béla Sándor at the School of Applied Arts. From 1911 he consistently attended exhibitions of the Art Gallery, the National Salon and later the Ernst Museum.

Between 1914 and 1918 he painted portraits for the Museum of Military History in the historical group of the 30th Infantry Regiment. In 1918 and 1919 he was a secretary of the Civil Radical Party in the 6th district.

Around 1925 he was a part of Vilmos Aba-Novák's Zugliget painting group which also consisted of Károly Patkó and Emil Kelemen.

In the summer of 1927 and 1928 besides his close co-operation with Aba-Novák and Patkó, he worked together with Kelemen, Jenő Barcsay and Eszter Mattioni in Igal and Törökkopány, in Somogy County.

In 1927 at the Hungarian Landscape and Genre-painting Exhibition in the Budapest Art Gallery and at the Balaton Society's Third Exhibition in 1928 he was awarded the prize of the Szinnyei Merse Pál Society.

In the 1930s he made hundreds of portraits and miniatures to order. From the mid-1940s he attended exhibitions of The Free Organisation of Hungarian Artists and of the National Salon with his artwork.

He died in 1962 and his memorial exhibition was organised in the Hungarian National Gallery in 1978 and in the Budapest Historical Museum in 1984

External links and sources

* [http://www.hung-art.hu/frames-e.html?/english/b/bank/index.html Fine Arts in Hungary]