Cheney’s family in Chile donates painting to artist’s Hungarian home town

The painting entitled “A Lady from Budapest” depicts Rosa Cheh Kontha, the artist’s wife.

Addressing the ceremony in the Dornyay Bela Museum, Chilean Ambassador Camilo Sanhueza, who owns as an art collector a couple of Cheney’s paintings, said the artist had won several awards in Chile including Santiago city’s Gold Medal in 1942. The ambassador said that a book is in preparation about Hungarian artists including Cheney who settled in Chile in the 1940s.

Salgotarjan Mayor Zsolt Fekete said at the ceremony that the painting arrived in the museum in the spring where it underwent restoration and was put in a new frame. He said Cheney had been instrumental in teaching artists, many of whom have become prominent painters in Chile.

At the ceremony, Esteban Vuchetich de Cseney called his grandfather the most famous 20th-century Hungarian artist in Chile.