This paper focuses on the history of the artists’ colony in Szolnok, Hungary, and aims to critically examine its cultural heritage. It aims not only to unfold the development of the specific iconography of the Roma body, in other words, the ways in which European artists used and depicted their Roma subjects, but also to reclaim their significance, to breathe life into them and reconstruct their agency.

The paper wishes to explore the life of Roma in Szolnok who served for decades as models for the artists – to breathe life into them, to grant their agency, their autonomy and their subjectivity and to give back their names. Then it wishes to explore the world of the colony not only by analysing and critically approaching their paintings, but also by telling the story of the colony through the experiences of Roma. I would like to develop a critical way of thinking while looking at paintings done on Roma. I will explore their content, the intention of framing and composing the image, the ways in which the subjects are depicted and other particular details.