Lajos Tóth was one of the defining figures of contemporary Hungarian visual art in Transcarpathia and a leading member of the Imre Révész Society of Hungarian Fine and Applied Artists in Transcarpathia. He worked as both a painter and a graphic artist.
From the very outset of his career, he prepared himself with dedication for the vocation of painting, and throughout his life, he consciously and steadfastly undertook the service of the cultural and intellectual advancement of the Hungarian community in the region.
From the outset of the political transition, he was an active participant in Hungarian public life in Transcarpathia. In 1990, he became a founding member of the Imre Révész Society of Hungarian Fine and Applied Artists in Transcarpathia (KMKI), and until his decision to withdraw from public duties in 2003, he served as its first president. In 1992, in Budapest, as a representative of Hungarian visual artists from Transcarpathia, he participated in the general assembly of the Hungarian Fine and Applied Artists’ Association (MKIT), which was founded under the auspices of the World Federation of Hungarians. Until 2003, he served on the MKIT executive board. His name is also associated with the successful presentation of the Imre Révész Society at the EXPO 2000 World Exhibition in Hanover.
In 2005, he was ceremonially elected a member of the Hungarian Academy of Arts alongside painters Ferenc Erfán and László Magyar, ceramic artist Anna Horváth, writers László Fábián Vári, Magda Füzesi, and Mihály Zoltán Nagy, and theatre director Attila Vidnyánszky. (His nomination was supported by painter Pál Gerzson and sculptor Pál Kő, and he was inducted by the Academy’s president, Imre Makovecz.)
At the time of his death in 2006, fellow artists bade him farewell with the following words: “Over the years, he became an emblematic figure in local cultural life, inspiring those around him not only by his mere presence but even more by his inexhaustible empathy and his commitment to Hungarian identity.”
He was born in Szürte (Syurte), a small village in Transcarpathia. From a young age, he painted continuously. His artistic development was profoundly shaped by his close friendship with a fellow village painter, László Kolozsvári. Together, they chose a path that remained rooted in Transcarpathian traditions yet diverged from prevailing norms. Instead of the stylistic and thematic dominance of Russian–Soviet–Ukrainian painting, they sought to depict the plains of Ung and the Bereg Tisza region, encircled by mountains, the faces of peasants, their resigned destinies shaped by hardship, and their impoverished everyday lives.
Between 1964 and 1967, he studied metalwork at the Uzhhorod School of Applied Arts. His teachers included Sándor Petky and Vilmos Berecz. Under the Soviet regime, most Hungarian artists in the region had no opportunity to pursue formal higher education in the fine arts (painting or sculpture). (See, for example, the study on the history of Transcarpathian visual art prepared for the biographies and artistic careers of the painters Ferenc Erfán and László Magyar, also members of the Hungarian Academy of Arts.) After completing vocational school, Lajos Tóth worked for nearly ten years as a decorator, designer and executor at various enterprises in Uzhhorod (Ungvár). Like many of his fellow artists, he received interior design and decorative commissions through InterArt and other companies. At the same time, he continued to paint. From the mid-1970s, his works began to appear in solo and group exhibitions, although exhibition opportunities and the number of works shown were still limited at that time. The true breakthrough in his life and art came with the political transition. From the early 1990s until his untimely death, he worked as a freelance painter.
Lajos Tóth was a painter, graphic artist, and book illustrator. The distinctive style and themes of his painting and drawing were shaped by Hungarian life in Transcarpathia. The everyday realities and history of the small Hungarian community that had lived in the region for centuries, marked by hardship, together with its culture, both determined and inspired his all-too-brief creative career. His outlook, thinking, and art were deeply permeated by a sense of belonging to Hungarian culture as a whole. His art differed markedly – in themes, style, and use of colour – from that of most members of the Imre Révész Society. Among his contemporaries, he stood out for his individual vision and modernity, in both subject matter and expressive means. His thematic world was shaped by a philosophically inclined artistic temperament. The works of the Madárijesztő series (Scarecrow, from 1993, oil on fibreboard), his triptych Múltunk, Jelenünk, Jövőnk (Our Past, Present, and Future, 1993, oil on canvas, 60 × 80 cm, repr.: KMKI Révész Imre Society exhibition catalogue, 1993), and several other works approach their subject matter from profound historical, socio-political, and psychological perspectives.
His paintings are characterised by a realist–surrealist mode of representation. He painted landscapes – such as Bogács (1994, oil on canvas, 54 × 65 cm, repr.: Révész Imre Society exhibition catalogue, 1995) and Tanya (Farmstead, repr.: EXPO 2000 – Hanover) – portraits (Ilon néni (Aunt Ilon, oil on canvas), Az öreg vadász (The Old Hunter, oil on fibreboard), repr.: KMKI Révész Imre Society 1990–1995 publication; Szent István (Saint Stephen, 1995, mixed media on paper), repr.: Honfoglalás 1100 (Conquest 1100) exhibition catalogue, and symbolically charged compositions (Erdélyi Béla emlékére (In Memory of Béla Erdélyi, oil on canvas), Emlékezés (Remembrance, ink on paper), the Repülő emberek (Flying People) series including Az utolsó próbálkozás (The Last Attempt, oil on fibreboard), repr.: KMKI Révész Imre Society 1990–1995 publication; Angyal a falu felett (Angel Above the Village, 1995, oil on canvas); Modern Babilon (Modern Babylon, 1995, mixed media on paper), repr.: Honfoglalás 1100 (Conquest 1100) exhibition catalogue. His creative self found expression in two directions: at times his artistic language was closely related to the traditions of the Transcarpathian school, at others it took on an associative, metaphorical, surrealist character. He possessed a highly individual painterly style; the peculiar surrealist and expressive dynamism of his works was simultaneously visionary, imagistic and symbolically charged. He worked on the Scarecrow theme until his death. The scarecrow appearing above the plain sometimes served to ward off evil spirits (Scarecrow, repr.: EXPO 2000 – Hanover), while at other times it symbolised the prevailing affliction (A gazember [The Villain], oil on fibreboard, repr.: KMKI Révész Imre Society 1990–1995 publication). The influence of Tivadar Csontváry Kosztka can be detected in the works he presented at the Révész Imre Society’s 1999 exhibition: Álomvár (Dream Castle), Kárpát-medence (Carpathian Basin), A költő emlékére (In Memory of the Poet), Családfa (Family Tree), Határ (Border) (repr.: Révész Imre Society exhibition catalogue, 1999).
In terms of colour, his restrained works possess a magical power that captivates the viewer, as they grasp the essence: they convey the atmosphere, the ‘spirit’, of the lowland landscape.
He was particularly gifted at expressing that, alongside the past and the present, the future holds little promise. Yet he possessed an unbroken faith. He had a strong sense of mission, fully aware that visual art is one of the pillars and safeguards of survival in the eastern borderlands. He was extraordinarily energetic and active; with strict self-discipline and a deep sense of vocation, he organised and led the emerging artistic community of the Révész Imre Society. He not only understood the tasks at hand but also guided the Society’s development. He organised exhibitions and artists’ colonies and ensured the publication of catalogues. All this took place at a time when artworks were created not in studios but in cellars or poorly lit attic spaces, and artistic creation meant stolen moments alongside everyday agricultural or artisanal labour. From personal experience, he knew and assessed that the Society’s members needed to be taken beyond the narrow Transcarpathian environment, to Hungary and further afield – to recharge, gain strength, and then return home with renewed creative energy to continue presenting an increasingly distinctive collective presence.
He was a large-scale personality, yet exceptionally modest and self-aware. Beyond his devoted leadership of the Society, he worked for the broader community, his homeland, and Hungarian culture. A survey of his oeuvre makes clear that his service to the community was self-sacrificing. Only a short time was granted to him for artistic creation. We see only fleeting glimpses of the artistic stature his great talent promised.
Lajos Tóth’s works were exhibited in several countries. Over the years, his paintings were shown in Kyiv, Uzhhorod, Nyíregyháza, Mátészalka, Miskolc, Pécs, Budapest, Sofia, Warsaw, and Hanover.
In the 1990s, he was the most frequently employed book illustrator in Transcarpathia; his distinctive and individual graphic vision appears in numerous poetry volumes by local Hungarian poets.
Recognising the need for an independent Hungarian visual arts organisation under the new conditions brought about by the political transition, he founded the Imre Révész Society of Hungarian Visual Artists in Transcarpathia in 1990 to represent contemporary Hungarian visual artists in the region. (At its founding, the members were: György Benkő (Berehove – Beregszász), Ferenc Erfán (Uzhhorod – Ungvár), Endre Hidi (Velyka Dobron – Nagydobrony), Ambrus Iván (Uzhhorod), Mária Jankovics (Uzhhorod), Gellért Kiesz (Uzhhorod), László Kolozsvári (Syurte – Szürte), Sándor Magyar (Uzhhorod), István Pálfy (Uzhhorod), Péter Petky (Uzhhorod), János Réti (Uzhhorod), Ferenc Szemán (Uzhhorod), Péter Veres (Berehove). László Magyar and several others joined later. It is a sobering fact that since the Society’s founding, most of the artists listed above have passed away.)
The Révész Imre Society emerged as a group of Hungarian artists committed to their homeland and to national traditions. In 1991, at their first exhibition in Uzhhorod Castle, they celebrated their shared sense of spiritual belonging with the public.
As president, Tóth Lajos led and organised the Society’s activities with great responsibility. He arranged exhibitions, symposia and artistic meetings, carried out administrative duties, and painted. He maintained constant contact with Hungarian artists across the Carpathian Basin – in Hungary, Upper Hungary (Slovakia), Transylvania, and Vojvodina – as well as with Rusyn and Ukrainian artists, and with Hungarian cultural institutions and associations in Transcarpathia and Hungary. The Society’s ongoing cooperation with the Ferenc II Rákóczi College in Berehove, the Boksay József Museum in Uzhhorod, and museums, galleries, and artists’ colonies in Hungary, Upper Hungary, and Transylvania was also firmly established through his efforts. In 1991, in Nagypalád (Velyka Palad’), Lajos Tóth organised the first Hungarian artists’ colony in Transcarpathia. From the works created there, the Society’s first highly successful exhibition opened at Uzhhorod Castle (then still housed in the Local History Museum building). In 1992, at the visual arts world meeting organised in Budapest by the World Federation of Hungarians, which coincided with the founding of the Hungarian Fine and Applied Artists’ Association (MKIT), members of the Révész Imre Society were also represented.
On the occasion of their large-scale exhibition in 1995 at the Transcarpathian Museum of Fine Arts in Uzhhorod, the group of Hungarian fine and applied artists in Transcarpathia celebrated not only its five-year anniversary. This exhibition also served as a precursor to the Tisztelgés a Honfoglalás 1100. évfordulója előtt (Homage to the 1100th Anniversary of the Hungarian Conquest) exhibition organised by the MKIT in Budapest in 1996. That exhibition marked the first joint presentation in Hungary of Hungarian fine and applied artists living throughout the Carpathian Basin. Among the Society’s most significant appearances was its participation in the EXPO 2000 – Hanover World Exhibition, followed by an exhibition at the Hungarian Institute in Warsaw.
At the time of his death, fellow artists paid tribute to him.
In his memorial address, the painter and college professor György Benkő emphasised that Tóth Lajos was a true representative of Great Plain painting. László Kolozsvári, as both friend and fellow artist, paid tribute to the creator of the works at the memorial exhibition, noting that he sought to create something out of nothing and to convey the simplicity of the Great Plain landscape – motifs that became the most valuable elements of his art.
In the catalogue published for the Révész Imre Society’s 1993 exhibition, István Tóth concluded his essay with the following words: “On the boundary of three small Hungarian villages in Ung County – Szürte, Szelmec and Gálocs – stands a solitary willow tree beside a small grove. My painter friend has painted this tree repeatedly, in every season and at every time of day: in warm twilight browns and in bone-white, cold scintillation. Yet it seems he has not exhausted its many variations. He feels – and quietly says so – that he still has much, perhaps endless, work to do in this universe, which appears tiny to the external observer. For us, this determination is our hope and consolation: the firm belief that Hungarian visual art in Transcarpathia – as long as that Willow Tree stands – can never be banned by decree.” In the description of the solitary tree and in the quoted words, we recognise Lajos Tóth himself. At his funeral, artist friends recalled one of his paintings depicting a solitary tree clinging to a vast, barren rock: “They say the artist portrayed himself in the tree, which, however, has now tragically split in two.”
[2016]