Erdeli, Adalbert

Erdeli, Adalbert [Ерделі, Адальберт], b 25 May 1891 in the village of Zahattia in Transcarpathia, d 19 September 1955 in Uzhhorod. Painter. Erdeli studied at the Budapest Academy of Arts in 1911–15 and then worked and held exhibits abroad in Munich, Paris, and Prague. He taught painting in secondary schools in Mukachevo and Uzhhorod. With Yosyp Bokshai he founded an art school in Uzhhorod in 1927 and the Society of Contributors to the Fine Arts in Transcarpathian Ruthenia, of which he was president, in 1931. In 1945–55 he was chairman of the Transcarpathian branch of the Union of Artists of Ukraine. Erdeli painted landscapes, portraits, and icons, in which the influence of Western impressionism was evident. Among his works are Still Life: Breakfast (1915), Old Man (1924), A Carpathain Lake (1930), and Still Life with Apples (1939). From the mid-1940s his paintings dealt with Soviet themes. Andrii Kotska, E. Kontratovych, and Fedir Manailo studied with Erdeli.

[This article originally appeared in the Encyclopedia of Ukraine, vol. 1 (1984).]