NYÁRI, ALEXANDER:
Hungarian art critic; born Aug. 28, 1861, at Zala-Egersczeg; educated at Vienna under Hansen, receiving his diploma as architect in 1884. In the following year he went to Paris and thence to Berlin, where he studied philosophy and the history of art. He received his degree of Ph.D. from the University of Leipsic in 1891.
In 1889 Nyári was commissioned by his government to travel through Hungary in search of specimens of the art of the Italian Renaissance dating from the time of King Matthias. Two years later he was appointed assistant in the archeological division of the National Museum and docent in the history of art in the School of Technology at Budapest. Commissioned by Count Csáky, minister of public worship and instruction, to search for monuments of art relating to Hungary, he traveled through Poland and Saxony (1892), Germany (1893), Italy and France (1894), and England, Holland, Servia, and Rumania (1895). In the course of these investigations he discovered a number of unknown works of the famous Hungarian painter Karl Brocky, who had been court painter to Queen Victoria. In 1894 Nyári was appointed custodian of the National Gallery of Paintings.
Nyári's two chief works, aside from numerous smaller contributions to the history of art, are: "Der Portraitmaler Johann Kupetzky, Sein Leben und Seine Werke" (Leipsic, 1889) and "A Kassai Székesegyház" (Budapest, 1896; in German also), on the Cathedral of Kaschan. Nyári is a convert to Christianity.
- Pallas Lex.
