Like the River Bed Painting

I was born on the 22nd June 1950, in Hódmezővásárhely. Up to the age of seven I lived in the house of my maternal grandmother, Eszter Szél. Then for a short period in my early childhood I stayed with "foster-parents". When 1957 came, my mother and I started moving from one sublet to another. 1957–1961 cover the years spent in Szekszárd where I was a pupil at an elementary school. During this period I had an average childhood with its average ranges of interest. In 1961, together with my mother, I was back again in the Great Hungarian Plain in the city of Kecskemét. Still no change in dwellings: sublets. This was the time of my first painting attempts: on nainsook with oil! I started the new school year of 1963/64 in the Boarding School of the Technical College for Financial Studies, Budapest. College years came. Instead of sublets, I slept in ten-person dormitories. Some important events spanning these years: were the "Surrealistic" artists in Budapest, the scandalous exhibition in the Ernst Museum organised by the Young Artists' Studio, an exhibition of impressionism in the Museum of Fine Arts and Picasso's works in the library of the French Embassy. The artistic calling was growing rapidly. In 1966 I returned to Kecskemét and after a short time I took a year off at school year. As a result I found myself at a Metalworking Company - instead of studying I worked as a factory hand there from 6 a.m. till 2 p.m. In the school year of 1966/1967, I was "back home" again in Hódmezővásárhely. As a student of the Technical College of Economic Studies I was a regular visitor in many ateliers and intellectual solitaries hosted private homes. In reality, it was a period of voluntary Exile. The "secret intellectual workshops" in the city provided definite directions for a highly sensitive adolescent. These were the determining years that shaped the many decades to come. The school year of 1969/70 found me in Szeged studying Hungarian literature and language and drawing in the Teacher's Training College. Everyday my academic life was full of excitement, scandals and, of course, peaceful drawings. 1972: still being a college student I got married. 1973: marked my third return to Kecskemét. That autumn my daughter, Bernadette, was born. 1975: is the year my son, Donát, was born. 1976: a "civilian in the field." I sacrificed my nights on the "altar of art." I created only graphics. Unique drawings - that had been developed out of a world of tone.