Emery Kelen
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Emery Kelen | |
|---|---|
| Born | 1896 |
| Died | 1978 (aged 81–82) |
| Known for | Caricature |
| Spouse | Betty Stones |
| Children | Juli Kelen |
Emery (also spelt as Imre or Emerich) Kelen (1896–1978) was a Hungarian caricaturist.
He was born in 1895 in Győr, Hungary.[1] He enrolled in an art school in Vienna; however, with the outbreak of World War I, he was drafted into the Austro-Hungarian army.[2] While on the battlefield, he contracted typhus and was sent to a hospital in Croatia to recover.[2] After his recovery, he was called to the front; however, he was found to be overwhelmed by his war experience and sent to a military insane hospital in Trnava.[2] He began his career as a caricaturist by drawing caricatures of the statesmen who attended the Paris Peace Conference in 1919.[3] Shortly afterward, he moved to Switzerland.[4] There, in collaboration with another Hungarian Jew, Alois Derso, he worked for fifteen years at the League of Nations in Geneva.[4][5] Their work, signed as Kelen-Derso, appeared in numerous European newspapers and gained global recognition.[5] Besides the League of Nations, he also created caricatures at the 1925 Locarno Conference, the 1933 London Economic Conference, and the 1932 World Disarmament Conference.[6] In 1938, he emigrated to the United States.[3] There, he continued his collaboration with Derso until 1950.[3]
He married Betty Stones on 25 September 1940, and they had one child, Juli Kelen.[2] He died in 1978 in Vienna, Austria.[7]
