László Fehér Retrospective Exhibition. Works 1975–2007

László Fehér first came to attention in the late 1970s in the Studio exhibitions, and has been a prominent figure of Hungarian art for the last twenty-five years. After the radical social documentation of his early photorealistic period, he turned to family mythology. Through images of anxiety filtered through family photographs and childhood memories from the 1950s, he found a more indirect format for conveying his message. It was then that he developed what has remained – if changed from time to time in colour and form – an unmistakable individual style made up of bold framing, dynamic, often diagonal composition, few colours and a sensitive balance of contour-indicated forms and fine detail. The primary aim of this exhibition is to present the process underlying Fehér’s special iconography and method of imagery as it has developed over three decades. The last time the Ludwig Museum held a Fehér exhibition was twelve years ago, in spring 1995 (in its old premises in the Buda Palace), entitled New Pictures. Since then, periods have followed one after the other, the dominant colours have changed, but the unchanging essence, the message, is an intricate relationship between the human figure and its surroundings: emotionally complex, often visually shocking, and at once harmonious and disharmonious. The basis is photography, whether old family photographs or the artist’s own snapshots. This is the starting point, a tool that the artist uses at will. Series drawn from each period build up to an integral whole held together by Fehér’s philosophy of art and life. The Ludwig Museum sees the time as right for a presentation of the phases of Fehér’s work over the thirty years which have passed since 1975. It has selected paintings from many public and private collections and the artist’s own studio, and puts some new works on public display for the first time. Alexandra publishers have produced a richly illustrated book on the occasion of the exhibition.

László Fehér was born in Székesfehérvár on 17 March 1953. He studied at the Hungarian College of Fine Arts between 1970 and 1976 under Lajos Szentiványi and Ignác Kokas. He was a Derkovits Scholar from 1978 to 1980, and won the Mihály Munkácsy Prize in 1993, the Kossuth Prize in 2000 and the Prima Award in 2006 (in the Hungarian Visual Arts Category). In 2007 he became the Hungarian Ambassador of Culture. He lives in Budapest and Tác.

Events linked to the exhibition:

Saturday, 23 June, 5.00 pm Is-Is randevú (discussion) Guests: Painter László Fehér and philosopher Ágnes Heller

Thursday, 28 June, 6.00 pm Guided tour by painter László Fehér

Saturday, 15 September, 4.00 pm Guided tour by painter László Fehér