Károly Lotz

Károly Lotz (1833–1904) was a leading Hungarian Romantic and academic painter celebrated for monumental allegorical and historical frescoes that decorate many of the major buildings of late-nineteenth-century Budapest, including the Hungarian National Opera, the Parliament, and St Stephen's Basilica. He also produced sensitive easel portraits and intimate nudes that reveal a parallel quieter vein in his career.

Lotz painted in a polished academic manner with brilliant color, classicizing composition, and refined drawing. His large-scale fresco programmes use airy perspectival illusionism in the Italian Baroque tradition.

Lotz produced the principal cycle of fresco decoration in late-nineteenth-century Budapest public buildings, shaping the visual identity of Hungarian national institutions.