A View of Laguna Beach by Bela Petheo.
This beautiful original oil piece was painted by Bela Petheo in 1993 and hung in the Probst Gallery in Chicago from August '93 until 2008, when it was returned to his private collection. It is a view of Laguna Beach in Southern California. It is painted and signed on 24"x28" hand-stretched canvas and was in Bela's personal collection. It was taken from his art room easel where he enjoyed seeing the peaceful view and donated to Quiet Oaks for this auction by his lovely wife, Kathy.
Bela taught art history and painting at St. John's University, helping lead the art program there and at the College of St. Benedict. He started working at SJU in 1966 and retired in 1997 and was known for his personality and teaching.
Bela was born in Budapest, Hungary, in 1934. After the Soviet suppression of the Hungarian Uprising, he moved to Vienna and studied at the Academy of Fine Arts. He immigrated to the United States in 1959 and received a master's degree at the University of Chicago in 1963.
"One of the really wonderful things about Bela, watching a painting unfold by Bela, it always made me feel the possibilities in myself. And that ... I might get there some day,"
Includes two Retrospective books, written by Bela. The first one covers his own works from 1985-2000 and the other covers the works of Oskar Kokoschka.