“The skill of drawing is one of the most marvellous abilities humankind has. It is similar to
music, where the ear (inner hearing), the hand, the brain and the heart work together to create
something wonderful. In the visual arts, the eye (inner sight), the hand, the brain and the heart
are needed for this mysterious magic to come into being. Drawing is a miracle itself: with a single
pencil, we can create worlds, and the illusion of three-dimensional space can be conjured up
on a blank sheet of paper.” To quote András Szunyoghy in his introduction to his Drawing ABC,
which he recommends for both beginners and advanced learners.1 Only a few Hungarian artists
have left behind equally lasting achievements in the areas of graphic art, book art, illustration
and teaching, and even fewer have done so with the level of technical expertise and thoroughness
as András Szunyoghy. His career, spanning decades, emerged from classical visual art traditions,
yet his work far exceeds them: it forms a bridge between the past and the present, art and
science, technical craftsmanship and visual approach, as well as applied and autonomous art.
His oeuvre stands as a distinctive and internationally recognised milestone in 20th- and 21st-century
Hungarian visual culture.
curator: Zoltán Rockenbauer