The Transylvanian Art Center cordially invites you to the exhibition of the painter Albert Nagy at Str. Oltului, no. 2, Transylvanian Art Center, ground floor and third floor exhibition halls on Friday, 17 July 2020, at 18:00.
The opening will be held in the courtyard behind the building.
The guests will be greeted by Zoltán Vécsi Nagy director of the Transylvanian Art Center.
The exhibition will be opened by József Gazda art historian.
The exhibition can be visited between 18 July 2020 and 21 August 2020, from Tuesday to Friday, from 10:00 to 17:00, and on Saturdays between 10:00 and 18:00.
The exhibition of Albert the Great can also be visited virtually >>
Albert NAGY, painter, sculptor
October 5 1902, Torda – February 25 1970, Kolozsvár
In 1921 he graduated from the Unitarian College of Kolozsvár. His drawing teacher was his uncle, Gyula Nagy (former student of Bertalan Székely). He first enrolled at the Engineering Faculty in Budapest, and after half a year in 1922 he was admitted to the free school of István Réti, Béla Iványi Grünwald and Jenő Feiksz, while attended simultaneously the evening courses of the College of Applied Arts, having Ferenc Márton as a teacher. Between 1922-25 he was a student at the Hungarian Academy of Fine Arts. For half a year he studied painting with István Bosznay, then from 1923 he became the student of Gyula Rudnay. He's been taught watercolor techniques by Aladár Edvi Illés and sculpture by Alajos Stróbl. Among his colleagues we can find Gyula Hincz, Vladimir Szabó and Alfréd Abay. As he gets orphaned at a very young age, he is supported by Hankinson, an English Unitarian minister living in Budapest. He lives an intense intellectual life in Budapest. Amongst others he listens to the lectures of Dezső Szabó. Between 1926 and 1937 he studied and worked in Italy, where he lived mostly from occasional sculptural works. In 1930 he finds a patron in the person of a stock-broker, Dr. Paolillo. In 1934 he exhibits at the Palazzo Doria in Rome. He settled in Budapest in 1937. In 1940 he was called to labor service at a road construction. After one month, he is hospitalized. In 1941 he moved back to Kolozsvár, where his brother Ernő Nagy provided him with a home and a place to create and work. From 1946, he becomes a substitute drawing teacher, replacing István Tóth at the Unitarian College. Between 1948 and 1957, the coryphaei of official art policy classify him as a "formalist artist" and his paintings are screened out from exhibitions. In order to alleviate their bad financial situation he makes children's toys . From 1953, he received an invalidity pension and, from 1962, a retirement pension from the Fine Arts Fund. In 1955 he was admitted to the psychiatry clinic in Marosvásárhely. He goes to rest at Székelykeresztúr. From 1957, his art began to gain recognition. In 1963, the state bought several of his works from a solo exhibition in Bucharest.
He is the most significant creator of the era of socialist realism, who exhibits authentic values, both in terms of contemporary style and sincere, principled human behavior.
He proves with his oeuvre that even in the harsh East-European reality, even during the homogenizing cultural oppression, validation can be gained for current human messages and for the unique Hungarian, Transylvanian colors.
A painter with an original personality, his language, reminiscent of the art of the naive, his chromatic scale of mostly unmixed tube colors, his puritan motifs evoke classical European values, full of profound meanings, but at the same time, all of that is paired with a colloquial, up-to-date civic spirit characteristic of the twentieth century. In the 1960s, he was the most controversial figure of the Hungarian art scene in Transylvania, emerging from the suppression of socialist realism's expectations, on the one hand, and on the other, beeing the most widely accepted role model of the younger generation of his times.
Awards an prizes:
1964: 2nd grade Medal of Merit for Work Order; study trip to the Soviet Union with the support of the Romanian Fine Arts Association; 1967: 2nd grade Medal of the Cultural Merit Order.
Solo exhibitions (selection):
1934: Palazzo Doria, Rome; 1963: Orizont Gallery, Bucharest; 1968: Museum of Fine Arts, Kolozsvár, Marosvásárhely, Székelyudvarhely, Csíkszereda; 1969: Nagyvárad; 1975: Korunk Gallery, Kolozsvár (commemorative exhibition, catalog); 1988: part of his legacy was placed in the Unitarian Bishopric of Kolozsvár, where it can be seen in a permanent exhibition, Unitarian Bishopric, Kolozsvár
Group exhibitoins (selection):
1932: Hungarian exhibition in Rome, Rome; 1945: Kolozsvár; 1947: Modern Romanian Art, Budapest; 1947: Transylvanian Fine Art Saloon, Kolozsvár; 1959: County exhibition, Kolozsvár; 1966: Romanian artists, Peking; 1967: Moscow
Source Literature:
József GAZDA - Nagy Albert (Kriterion Publishing House, Bucharest, 1982); Lajos KÁNTOR -Fehér volt a világ (Kriterion Publishing House, Bucharest -Kolozsvár, 1997)
