Július Jakoby

A loner from Košice who painted his city and its people all his life. He trained at Eugen Krón's private school of painting and printmaking (1923 – 1926) and in 1926 – 1928 at the Budapest Academy of Fine Arts under István Réti; after two years he returned to Košice and never left again. In 1934 he won the Prize of the City of Košice for the painting Reclining Female Nude.

His early work is socially engaged, with a grotesque, ironic accent (Unemployed Worker from Krompachy, Fear); later colour and a loose, spontaneous brushwork dominate (Circus). In 1968 he was named Meritorious Artist; his works are held by the Slovak National Gallery, the National Gallery in Prague and the Hungarian National Gallery, with the largest collection in the East Slovak Gallery in Košice, where a statue of him stands in the city centre.