Tag: budapest

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Vera Molnar ( 1924- 2023)

In 1924, in the vibrant city of Budapest, Hungary, a young and talented artist by the name of Molnár embarked on her artistic journey. At the mere age of eight, she began developing her skills, relentlessly laboring to perfect her craft. Her education led her down the path of Art History and Aesthetics at the esteemed Hungarian University of Fine Arts.

Continuing to hone her craft, Molnár had already built a substantial portfolio of traditional artwork by the time she delved into the world of generative and computer art. These innovative mediums would later become her claim to fame, earning her recognition and acclaim in the art world.

After receiving a scholarship to Rome, Molnár and her partner François moved to Paris in 1947. It was here that she would continue to thrive as an artist, eventually marrying her beloved partner. Settling into the Hungarian artistic community in Paris, the couple often frequented the bustling streets, spending evenings at the popular café, Le Select. This is where she encountered some of her greatest contemporaries, including the likes of Victor Vasarely, Fernand Léger, Kandinsky, and Brancusi.

www.ftn-books.com has several Molnar items now available.

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El Kazovskij (1948-2008)

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Born in Russia, but living most of her life in Hungary, El Kazovskije has hada special role in Hugarian art. The art of Hungary from the second half of last century is mostly known for constructivist art, but El kazovskije had a totally differen t approach to art . Designing costumes and making performances made him a much more complete artist than the artists from his generation.

El Kazovsky was born under the name of Elena Kazovskaya in Leningrad, Russia to Irina Putolova, an art historian, and Yefim Kazovsky, a physicist. He moved to Hungary in 1965, at the age of 15, and graduated in 1977 with a degree in painting from the Hungarian Academy of Fine Arts. El Kazovsky’s masters were György Kádár and Ignác Kokas.

El Kazovsky was open about being transgender – born biologically as a female and self-defining as an androphile man.

His art cannot be broken down into periods; all of his expressive paintings reveal the same mythological world that he created. Several recurring figures appear in many of his paintings, such as the long nosed dog or the ballet dancer figure. Besides paintings, his work includes stage designs, performances and installations.

www.ftn-books.com has a rare studio Galeria catalogue from 1979 on the artist available

kazovskije

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JÓZSEF PÉCSI (1889-1956) — a photography innovator pur sang… essay from the Moma.org site

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The following text comes from the site of Moma.org.

The Moma delivers a great source on photography with this site and makes it possible to search their collection and compare photographs from it….it is outstanding and an example to many.

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József Pécsi was a Hungarian photographer, innovator, and educator. Born in 1889 into a middle-class family in Budapest (then part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire), Pécsi was schooled in German and maintained lifelong ties with an international photography community. He studied photography at the Lehr- und Versuchsanstalt (Training and research institute) in Munich from 1909 to 1911, and began receiving international recognition soon after graduation. In 1911 he returned to Budapest and opened his own studio, where he also offered instruction to apprentices. In 1913 he established the photography department at the Budapest School of Industrial Drawing, for which he is credited as the founder of photography education in Hungary. He was dismissed from teaching in 1920 due to conflicts with the conservative political regime but maintained his own studio, which served as a gathering place for students, including Eva Besnyö and her friend György Kepes. In 1922 Pécsi was elected vice president of the Budapest Industrial Guild of Photographers and served as editor of the guild’s journal, Magyar fotográfia (Hungarian photography). In 1930 he published the influential book Photo und Publizität (Photography and publicity) to promote the blending of typography, design, and photography in avant-garde advertising, with contributions from Kepes and others. The publication marks his crossover from the Pictorialist style of his early work to the ascendant international modernism of the interwar period. The World War II years took their toll: he hid in Romania for a brief period; his studio and negatives were destroyed by a bomb in 1945; and, upon his return to Budapest, in 1946, financial hardship and an unfavorable regime forced him to take passport photographs to make ends meet. His passion for photography and innovative spirit were not lost, however; in 1952 he patented a combined duplex Pigment print process under the name PEJO.

www.ftn-books.com has one title on Pecsi available

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA
OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA
OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA

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Dora Maurer (1937) …special silkscreen edition (1998)

It is not that long that i admire the works by Dora Maurer. It took me 20 years to appreciate minimal art and not much less to appreciate constructivist works, but the instant i encountered works by Maurer i became fascinated.

Dora Maurer (born 1937 in Budapest) is a Hungarian artist whose work has spanned a 50-year career. With an emphasis on photography, film, graphic design, amongst other things, Maurer has made herself a household name in the art world. Principally achieving recognition in the 1970s with avant-garde work, Maurer has developed her art career from works with contemporary and modern influences that have been shown worldwide. All of her art is based on mathematical and complex system processes. Most of Maurer’s work follows the theme of showing options to the viewer and what the viewer can do with those options. Many of her works break down simple actions so the viewer can really view the piece as movement, not a photograph of movement. Dora Maurer has in addition been a professor at the Faculty of Fine Arts in Budapest and a curator.

In 1998 she was given a nice retrospective at the Josef Albers Museum in Bottrop for which occasion she made a wonderful and original silkscreen print for her exhibition. The Josef Albers museum had, beside the small edition for publicity purposes, about 15 copies signed by Dora Maurer and www.ftn-books.com has 3 available of these rare signed silkscreen prints.

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maurer signed b

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Vera Molnár and computer art

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Yesterday i added a very nice publication on Vera Molnar to my inventory and realized that she was the artist i was most impressed with the time i visited the Vasarely Museum in Budapest. Molnar born 1924 studied with the art school of Budapest and was one of the first artists worldwide to experiment with computers in her art.

In 1968 she began working with computers, where she began to create algorithmic paintings based on simple geometric shapes geometrical themes.

Patterns and compositions were made with help the computer and since, her art developed in something very special.

In the 1960s, Molnar co-founded several artist research groups: GRAV who investigate collaborative approaches to mechanical and kinetic art, and Art et Informatique, with a focus on art and computing. Molnar learned the early programming languages of Fortran and Basic, and gained access to a computer at a research lab in Paris where she began to make computer graphic drawings on a plotter, several of which are included in a 2015 retrospective exhibition in New York called “Regarding the Infinite | Drawings 1950-1987.

Her works are now found in collections and museums all over the world, but the best museum to see her works is the Vasarely Museum in Budapest.

www.ftn-books.com has some nice Molnar publications in its collection. including a signed and original print.

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