In Search of Rosie Ney: A Life Reflected Through the Lives of Others
In Search of Rosie Ney: A Life Reflected Through the Lives of Others

Summary/Abstract: This study examines a brief period in the lives of four artists: František Foltýn and Gejza Schiller, two of the most renowned figures in the Košice Modernist movement, the author Béla Illés, and the main character, the photographer Rosie Ney. Several sources have suggested that the paths of these four individuals crossed in Košice in 1921. The study does not intend to present their lives or work in their full complexity but aims instead to clarify some ambiguities over their fates in the early 1920s. The primary focus of the article is to address the persisting uncertainty over the nature of the relationships between the four individuals and their movements between 1919 and 1923. The research collates and analyses a wide range of fragmented evidence of varying degrees of reliability in an effort to identify possible connections between the lives of the four artists and thereby raise the discussion of the issue to a new level. On the more settled question of the marriage of Rosie Ney and Béla Illés, the study also attempts to identify Rózsi Földy, alias Rosie Ney, within Illés’s autobiographical novel Ég a Tisza and to clarify the timeframe of their marriage and various aspects which can shed light on subsequent events. The key topic is the unresolved question of the relationship between Rosie Ney and František Foltýn. By outlining the sequence of events in the lives of the two artists in the early 1920s, the study offers a new perspective and some interesting findings regarding the nature of their relationship.

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