Desiderius Orban (1884-1986), artist, educator and author, was born on 26 November 1884 at Györ, Austria-Hungary, third child and only son of Adolf Orbán, a soldier in the Hungarian army, later a postmaster, and his wife Julia, née Schärfer. Self-taught, Dezsõ started painting when a student at the University of Budapest and exhibited (1905, 1906) at the National Salon, Budapest.

While in Paris in 1906, he discovered work by Matisse, Van Gogh and Cézanne, which was to influence his approach to painting. His only formal training was a fortnight with Jean Paul Laurens at the Académie Julian*, where Orban rejected teaching methods that stressed academism*. He disliked formalism; for him, art was about creation. Affirming the creative p...