Hungarian Cultural Center New York | Magyar Kulturális Intézet York

March 27 – April 17, 2008

Opening reception: Thursday, March 27th, 7:00pm-9:00pm

At 103 years old, Tamás Lossonczy is one of the oldest living artists in the world. A leading figure of 20th-century Hungarian painting, Lossonczy continues to this day to create bold new works of art. Lossonczy has sustained extraordinary intensity and a relentless desire for experimentation since the early ‘30s. Throughout a career spanning more than seven decades, Lossonczy has witnessed historical traumas of Central Europe as well as the radical transformations of Hungarian culture and politics. An artist who has always avoided labels and categorization, Lossonczy’s work is marked by a diversity of media and methods: abstract and figurative paintings, prints and collages, sculptures and constructed objects.

The Hungarian Cultural Center is honored to have the opportunity to present Tamás Lossonczy’s first solo exhibition in New York. A selection of paintings from the private collection of George Soros, the exhibition demonstrates Soros’ longstanding admiration for the artist and invites the New York public to encounter the scope of Lossonczy’s pictorial work.

About the Exhibition
The exhibition presents paintings from the late 1940s through the present. Lossonczy started to receive critical acclaim and attention between 1945 and 1948, the period described by the Hungarian poet and writer, Ágnes Nemes-Nagy, as the “three years of art and literature”. During this time, following the liberation of Hungary and preceding the installation of the Soviet-type totalitarian regime, he actively participated in the burgeoning Hungarian art scene and produced his first series of abstract paintings. Technology Exists for Us (1947) and Untitled (1947-48) are among the foremost canvases of not only Lossonczy’s oeuvre, but also of 20th century Hungarian abstraction. With its geometric patterns and decorative design, Technology Exists for Us reflects both the utopian belief in science and machines, as well as the postwar anxieties of technological modernization. The subdued chromatic scale, chiefly composed of black, gray and white, and the carefully orchestrated visual rhythm of geometric and ornamental forms evokes visionary spaces and mechanomorphic constructions. Untitled, to borrow the critic, Ernest Kállai’s poetic expression, is “structured by the promise of heavenly order”. Attesting to Lossonczy’s awareness of both Surrealist biomorphism and lyrical abstraction, its hybrid figuration and chromatic richness brings to mind references of cosmic landscapes while also incorporating a constructivist approach in the organization of pictorial field. Since the early ‘90s, shortly after the political changes in Hungary, Lossonczy’s career has taken a new turn. Attesting his unrelenting energy and creativity, he embarked on a new series of vibrant, decorative paintings (Golden Coast, 1991), and then worked on small-scale paintings and collages which he arranged into chromatic units. The second half of the exhibition provides a selection of these works representing Lossonczy’s lasting interest in seriality, abstract ornamentation, and modular construction.

About Tamás Lossonczy
Tamás Lossonczy was born in Budapest, in 1904. After graduating from the Hungarian Academy of Fine Arts in 1926, he traveled to Paris and Amsterdam. Following his interest in architecture and design, between 1929 and 1931, he attended the department of interior design at the Hungarian Academy of Applied Arts. A member of the Group of Socialist Artists since 1934, he worked as a designer in the architectural office of Farkas Molnár and, abandoning painting, produced a series of spatial constructions. In 1937 he traveled to Paris on a study trip. Upon his return to Hungary – following the advice of his wife, the sculptor, Ibolya Lossonczy – he took up painting again. His abstract works, titled Configurations, featured expressive chromatic variations of organic and geometric shapes. His first solo exhibition was organized by the critic, Ernest Kállai in 1943 in Budapest. After WWII, Lossonczy joined the European School (1945-48), a short lived yet influential group of the Hungarian avant-garde, as well as the Hungarian Group of Abstract Artists. Besides his abstract paintings – described by Kállai as examples of the so-called “bioromanticism” – he also produced a sequence of reliefs (String Pictures, 1946-48), based on entangled constructions of rope appearing on nailed wood panels. After the 1948 installation of the Soviet-type political regime in Hungary, he worked on a series of landscapes and still-life paintings. Between 1957 and 1968, he taught drawing at an industrial school in Budapest. Great Cleansing Storm (1961-62), an emblematic work commemorating the political traumas of postwar Hungary, including the 1956 revolution, was produced around this time, along with a diverse body of work, comprised of both figurative and abstract paintings, as well as wire-based sculptures. Following a trip to Paris in 1969, he had a solo exhibition in the Adolf Fényes Gallery of Budapest. His growing visibility and critical acclaim was also secured by the publication of Mária Bozóky’s monographic study of his work in 1976, and three years later, by his retrospective exhibition held at the Kunsthalle of Budapest. A founding member of the Széchenyi Academy of Letters and Arts, established by the Hungarian Academy of Sciences in 1992, he won the Kossuth Prize, Hungary’s highest-ranking award, in 1994. Lossonczy’s work has been featured at numerous exhibitions in both Europe and the US. He is represented, among others, in the permanent collections of the Hungarian National Gallery (Budapest, Hungary), the Museum of Contemporary Art/Ludwig Museum (Budapest, Hungary), and the Jerusalem Museum (Jerusalem, Israel). He lives and works in Budapest, Hungary.