Jenő Szervátiusz Award winners

“If you can sing of nothing better
than your own joy or broken heart,
the world can do without your singing:
keep out, where you can have no part!”
(Sándor Petőfi: The Poets of the Nineteenth Century, January, 1847, Pest) 

The quote is the credo proclaimed by our great Hungarian poet, Sándor Petőfi, almost two hundred years ago. It is as valid and up to date now as it was then.

Petőfi’s voice was joined by Bartók and Kodály in music and by Jenő Szervátiusz in fine art barely one hundred years later, when they defined “the pure spring” as the source artists should draw from.

But this spring – I believe – does not emerge in mountains but flows from “heavenly waters” streaming in our souls with beautiful and sustaining power. Our two great composers discovered it among the folk, who have always stood closer to the Sky.

In the middle of the last century, Tibor Szervátiusz marked out the way for artistic creation in his ars poetica thus:

“It is not enough to merely create form. I believe artists truly create if they not only experiment but bring something into being...
If they can impose their spiritual power on the material.
If they can force the material to encapsulate and forever carry the tensions of an entire people and the fate of all humankind.” 

When, twenty years ago my husband and I – like Sándor Csoma – set off to find every Hungarian artist in the Carpathian Basin, we knew we would come upon value. How great was our joy when we discovered the immeasurable wealth, spiritual aspirations and diverse implementations, from which we have now selected works by twenty-one artists and placed them at the forefront of attention.

What do these artists think about? About what we hold as the most important: life and death, the stations in between, thriving, values and eternal life.

I do not know what the future will bring. I can only hope that ever fewer fledgling artists will hear the siren voices of destruction and instead recognise the path of true art.

This is how I would assess the current situation:

Hungarian art is alive and is tending to the task entrusted to it by the Almighty.
It is healing the wounds of the world and preparing the way for the resurgence of the Magyars. 

Klára Szervátiusz, curator

Budapest, Madárhegy, 2 July 2023

Jenő Szervátiusz Prize-winning artists (2003-2023) and exhibiting artists

Founding members of the Art Prize
Jenő Szervátiusz (1903-1983) sculptor | Transylvania, Cluj-Napoca (RO) - Budapest
Tibor Szervátiusz (1930-2018) sculptor | Transylvania, Cluj Napoca (RO) - Budapest

Award-winning artists
István Árkossy (1943) painter and graphic artist | Transylvania, Cluj Napoca (RO) - Budapest
Éva Barabás (1943) painter | Târgu Mures (RO), Transylvania
Bardócz Lajos (1936) graphic artist | Transylvania, Sighisoab (RO) - Berkenye
Iván Berend (1940-2022) painter | South Moravia, Zombor (RS) - Dunabogdány
Vince Bocskay (1949) sculptor | Szováta, Transylvania (RO)
Gaál András (1936-2021) painter | Transylvania, Gyergyóditró (RO) - Pannonhalma
Győrfi Lajos (1960) sculptor | Hungary, Püspökladány
Györfi Sándor (1951) sculptor | Karcag, Hungary
Gyurkovics Hunor (1941) graphic artist, painter | Pécs - South Hungary, Subotica (RS)
Homoki Gábor (1977) painter | Tiszapéterfalva, Transcarpathia (UA)
Kákonyi Csilla (1940) painter | Transylvania, Radnót - Târgu Mures (RO)
Anna Kubinyi (1949-2015) textile artist | Budapest, Hungary
Árpád Márton (1940) painter | Transylvania, Csíkszereda (RO)
Péter Matl (1960) sculptor | Munkács, Carpathian Republic (UA)
János Nagy (1935-2021) sculptor | Helemba, Upper Hungary (SK) - Tata
Lajos Páll (1938-2011) painter | Korond, Transylvania (RO)
Petrás Alina (1980) ceramic artist | Moldavian Csángó | Diossen (RO) - Pomáz
Petrás Mária (1957) ceramicist, singer | Moldavian Csángó | Diosene
Tibor Rieger (1941) sculptor | Hungary, Budapest
Szabó Ottó (1965) painter | Upper Hungary, Kassa (SK)