Dezső Czigány: the painter who killed his entire family on New Year's Eve
Dezső Czigány's paintings now sell for tens of millions of forints, whilst the painter wiped out his own family on a New Year's Eve night. The case is recounted in a book and podcast by Szabolcs Kordos.
Cheerful paintings, a horrific secret: the case of Dezső Czigány
In the Index podcast, journalist Szabolcs Kordos recounts how they stumbled upon one of the most shocking Budapest crime cases, committed in an apartment on Lendvai utca. Dezső Czigány's mother-in-law tried to reach her daughter in the morning to no avail, so she turned to banker Alfréd Manovil for help. Józsefné Burján, the building caretaker, managed to enter the top-floor flat with the assistance of police – where a horrific sight awaited them.
The story appears as a chapter in Szabolcs Kordos's book titled A város bűnös titkai (A city's guilty secrets). The author and his photographer colleague, Dávid Huszár, personally visited the scene of every crime case featured in the book.
"You do not necessarily need to travel in order to make discoveries; sometimes it is enough to go just two streets over," Kordos said in the Index Culture section podcast. According to him, visiting the scenes connects the past and the present: they walk on the same stairs that the murderer used while wearing bloody clothes.
Kelen Anna, an art historian, also analysed Czigány's case in the podcast. The painter's works now exchange hands for tens of millions of forints – colourful, cheerful paintings that conceal a dark reality behind them. Czigány, namely, killed his wife, child and grandchild on a New Year's Eve night, and then ended his own life.
During the journalistic investigation, further details also came to light: his first wife died in strange circumstances as well.
"As we dug a bit deeper into his life, it turned out that his first wife had also died under strange circumstances," Kordos Szabolcs reported in the Index podcast.
Earlier episodes of the arútluK podcast can be listened to again on the Index website.
Source: Index