Exhibition in Szeged showcases long-hidden works of Mihály Pál Sr.
Sculptures by Mihály Pál Sr., a Munkácsy Prize-winning artist who worked in seclusion during Hungary’s socialist era, are on public view in Szeged for the first time.
The Regional Art Center (REÖK) opened the exhibition Stillness Becoming Motion (Mozgássá váló mozdulatlanság) on Friday, filling three rooms with works that highlight the sculptor’s career. Although Pál Sr. had few ties to Szeged, his son, literary historian József Pál, once served as vice-rector of the University of Szeged.
Pál Sr., who died in 1971, is today regarded as a forerunner of abstract sculpture in Hungary. During his lifetime, however, the official style of socialist realism limited his opportunities. While he created public works to support his family, his most experimental pieces remained in his studios in Budapest’s Várkert Bazaar and in his home in Gyömrő.
“He lived in difficult times and under difficult circumstances,” his son said at the opening. “For him, literary experience was never illustration. It was re-creation — the struggle to transpose a text into another mode of existence.” Many of the sculptures drew inspiration from writers and poets such as Endre Ady and Homer, as well as from Shakespeare’s King Lear and The Tempest.
Art historian Róbert Nátyi, chief curator of REÖK, described Pál’s career as an example of the “refraction” of Hungarian art in the 1950s and 1960s. “He made sculptures to make a living, but what was created in the solitude of the studio revealed a wholly new vision,” Nátyi said.
Photos: Szilvia Molnar / Szegedify
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