Sándor László Veress has been exhibiting his works since the early 1960s. In 2012 – on the occasion of Magyar Festészet Napja (Day of Hungarian Painting) – he was given a Lifetime Achievement Award, and he continues to paint actively today in his studio located in the city centre. Over the more than half a century since the beginning of his career, he has produced a wide range of high-quality pieces of art, from still lifes through expressionist crowd scenes to medals depicting prominent figures of the cultural life of the twentieth-century.
The principal characteristics of his painting are powerful colours, energetic brushwork, “a dynamic, varied, restless pictorial milieu rich in visual surprises” [1], and a remarkable diversity of subject matter. “I dream of an instinctive kind of figurative painting. Within me, an idea-world has taken shape that, in historical terms, is connected to the great masters of the red thread expressive tradition, from Tintoretto to Francis Bacon, who ‘depicted human beings as writhing raw-flesh creatures smothered in clots of paint’” [2]. “The major international movement of the 1970s, 1980s and 1990s – the ‘new painting’ – and especially the programme of the London School, also had a great influence on me,” he writes in his autobiography.
The spectacular works of Sándor László Veress are reflections of an unconstrained, subjective reality, articulated by the painter through powerful, contrasting colours and distinctive forms. “The scenes of Veress’s paintings are not staged allegories or demonstrative apotheoses; rather, they are revelations of concealed moments, organised into complex chains of association—if one may put it this way: monumental historical intimacies, muted loudness, the pianos of snuff and trumpets. A large proportion of his works are of monumental scale; it is in these that one can best observe the molecular sensitivity of his modelling, the significance of overtones, and the force of the acoustics that seems to reach the heavens.” [3] In the formation of his style, he considers the guidance of his masters absolutely imperative: János Kmetty, Endre Domanovszky, and above all László Visky Balás, who also taught László Lakner, Ferenc Kóka, and László Gyémánt. From Visky Balás he received didactic foundations “without which there can be no higher-order creative process.” [4] Over the course of his thirty-year teaching career at the Képzőművészeti Főiskola (Hungarian University of Fine Arts), he passed on his knowledge to painters such as Gábor Véssey, Péter Baky, Zoltán Z. Szabó, and Gábor Atlasz.
Veress’s artistic activity is also connected to the trans-avantgarde. At times, he revisits previously known compositions, occasionally borrowing specific details from them for his own works. His painting Elöl, középen, hátul (Front, Centre, Back), for example, is a paraphrase of Adriaen Brouwer’s Dohányzók (Smokers); the motif of the suspended carcass in Hentesek (Butchers) had appeared earlier in the work of Rembrandt; while the large-scale paintings of the Közélet (Public Life) series – Közélet sárga szobában (Public Life in a Yellow Room, 1992), Közélet sötét szobában (Public Life in a Dark Room, 1994), and Közélet (Public Life, 2004) – are reinterpretations of Max Beckmann’s Die Nacht (The Night). These latter compositions are less tragic and less creepy than the original painting; with their comparatively toned down colours, they function instead as works of critical intent, conveying the ridiculous and petty nature of the subject matter. Veress also drew extensively on the primitive, tribal formal language explored by the Post-Impressionists and later employed particularly by the Dresden-based Die Brücke group – above all by Emil Nolde. Beyond his energetic use of colour, this influence is evident in the exaggerated contours and mask-like faces of figures depicted in profile (as in Sötét kertben (In a Dark Garden), Közélet sötét szobában (Public Life in a Dark Room), and Keresztelés I. (Baptism I.)). At the same time, when examining these paintings, one is also reminded of the chromatic riot of colours creating the bizarre atmosphere depicted in the works of James Ensor.
His subjects are diverse, and the “figures (…) inhabiting his works are participants in struggles, symbols of activity. They are never passive.” [5] He frequently depicts his protagonists in the midst of labour (Ápolónő és a sebesült férfi – Nurse and the Wounded Man; Artisták oroszlánnal – Acrobats with a Lion; Hentes báránnyal – Butcher with a Lamb), paints chaotic crowds in motion (Keresztelés – Baptism; Közélet – Public Life; Sötét aluljáróban – In a Dark Underpass; Dinnyepiac – Watermelon Market), or renders dynamic movement and sporting activity (Motoros és verekedők – Motorcyclist and Brawlers; Aerobic és más játékok – Aerobics and Other Games; Sárga tornateremben – In a Yellow Gymnasium).
At other times, he employs strident colours to depict cheerful, boisterous scenes (Örömteli, boldog játék – Joyful, Happy Play), or creates non-figurative collages incorporating words, works that may be related to street art and graffiti practices (Párizsi tűzfal – Parisian Firewall). From the early stages of his career, several dark-toned paintings are also known, such as Rákosfalvi szobabelső (Interior in Rákosfalva, 1956) in which no human figures are visible: only an apartment with a few pieces of furniture and an open window through which the nocturnal cityscape of the outskirts unfolds before us.
Characteristic of his painting – particularly of his later works – is the dominance of large, homogeneous fields of red (Két férfi vörös szobában – Babonás kép – Two Men in a Red Room – Superstitious Image; Chagall szamovárja – Chagall’s Samovar; Budapesti Amundsen – Amundsen in Budapest), yellow patches (Aerobik és más játékok – Aerobics and Other Games), and blue surfaces (Artisták II. – Acrobats II.). At the same time, the opposite tendency can also be observed: especially in works characteristic of the 1960s, partially executed using a “dripping technique” and appearing unfinished (Fésülködők – Combers; Frank Frigyes arcképe – Portrait of Frigyes Frank), the brushwork and colouring diverge markedly from those mentioned above. On several occasions, softer, almost Menyhért Tóth–like pastel colours also appear in his oeuvre, paired with a gentler formation of forms; in such cases, the figures are most often edged and held together by reddish contour lines (Önarckép – Self-Portrait; Cirkusz I. – Circus I; Asszonyok – Women). “Even the formal order of compositions built from a restrained palette and pastel shades radiates, with a tension-laden force, the deeply experienced – almost impassioned – nature of expression; yet canvases weighted by explosive colours either cause the viewer to recoil or seize them with elemental power. For it is the restless, driven and agitated character – the atmosphere – of representation that governs colour harmonies and systems of chromatic counterpoint alike.” [6]
According to András Fodor, Sándor László Veress is “a true-born colourist. Colours have a sort of musical sound on his canvases, almost resonating. His modernity often lies precisely in the way he finds bold analogies between phenomena of the past and the present. Like for example, he projects the dazzling chromatic richness of Paolo Uccello’s Italian battle panoramas onto the struggles of ice hockey players, the costumed procession onto the colourful attire of colliding figures, and their lances onto the raised sticks chasing the puck.” [7]
From the majority of his paintings, time, concrete space and gravity are seem to be missing; his figures most often do not make contact with the ground but instead hover above it, and in some works we find no indication at all of where up or down might be. The element of grotesque is also an essential component of his painting, frequently manifesting itself in a wide variety of human and animal figures. In his series depicting acrobats, the motif of the caged human figure and that of the lion perched upon the tamer’s neck tend to recur on several occasions. The distorted faces in Hentes báránnyal (Butcher with a Lamb) evoke the anomalous, biomorphic beings of Francis Bacon, yet the geometric abstract compositions of Piet Mondrian may also shimmer into view when contemplating the painting…
Veress fundamentally paints images populated by human figures; nevertheless, still lifes (Asztal napilapokkal, akváriummal – Table with Newspapers and an Aquarium; Körték vörös terítőn – Pears on a Red Tablecloth; Körtés tál késsel – Pear Bowl with a Knife, etc.), interiors (Rákosfalvi szobabelső ággyal, székkel – Rákosfalva Interior with Bed and Chair), and landscapes (Viharos táj – Stormy Landscape) also occur within the oeuvre. Up until the mid-1970s, some of his works even approach the threshold of non-figuration (Fésülködők – Combers; Sirató nő – D. E. emlékére – Mourning Woman – In Memory of D. E.), albeit in such a way that the barely discernible, blurred figures in the paintings generate a strong sense of movement. “The painter is concerned above all with the relationship between space and figures, with perpetual motion. Behind the agitated lines, dramatically expressive impulses seethe and struggle with one another. It follows from this that the wall-demanding monumentality, the fresco-like quality – toward which he has an innate inclination – is always strained by the compulsion of displacement, by an irrepressible inner restlessness; this is why he consistently handles sinuous, curving lines with greater pleasure and expressive force than regular ones.” [8]
In several of his works, Veress also subtly introduces the technique of collage into the composition. In Körték vörös terítőn (Pears on a Red Tablecloth), we encounter the front pages of Magyar Nemzet and Kurier; in Asztal napilapokkal, akváriummal (Table with Newspapers and an Aquarium), predominantly sports newspapers are visible; while atop Budapesti Amundsen (Amundsen in Budapest) a halved map of Hungary is prominently displayed. “The pictorial surfaces become fragmented and abrasive through the accumulation of roughly applied layers of paint, and into the crater-like, solidified patches collage elements are inserted among the motifs: photographs, newspaper clippings, fragments of matchboxes – and even a worn broom may be synthesised into an organic pictorial component” [9], as in Elöl, középen, hátul (Front, Centre, Back). At the same time, this painting also employs the motif of the picture within the picture: in the upper right corner of the canvas we see an unusually proportioned female face.
Alongside his painting, his activity in small-scale sculpture – particularly in medal-making – is also noteworthy. He created series in memory of his master János Kmetty, and produced medals as acts of homage to figures such as Pablo Picasso and Francis Bacon. Among the most eminent Hungarian painters, he also modelled the portraits of Ödön Márffy, József Egry, Frigyes Frank, Gyula Hintz, István Farkas, and Imre Makovecz. From among foreign figures, he portrayed Francisco Goya, Max Beckmann, Henri Matisse, and Alberto Giacometti. Portrait designs were also realised depicting literary figures such as Guillaume Apollinaire and Béla Hamvas, as well as the composer Zsolt Durkó. His gobelin Zene (Music) was created on commission for the Miskolci Nemzeti Színház (Miskolc National Theatre).
Alongside his activity as a visual artist, Veress’s role as an organiser of artistic life is likewise significant. For many years he maintained a correspondence with Ronald B. Kitaj, as a result of which he succeeded in having the Hungarian translation of Kitaj’s First Diasporist Manifesto (Első Diaszpóra-manifesztum) published.
Sándor László Veress summarised the essence of his long artistic career, and the enduring significance and message of his works, in the following reflection: “Everything arises from sensation. Sensation determines our entire life. For what is sensation? The repository of experiences – the moment when we live through something. (…) And the credibility of painting lies in the fact that it emerges from a marvellous sensation, which is a matter of personal presence. There is a person behind perception.” [10] Thus, within the painting, it is ultimately the artist’s own personality that comes into outline.
[1] Excerpt from the opening speech delivered by Pál Gerzson on 15 May 1998 at the exhibition held at the MOL Gallery, Szolnok.
[2] Gábor Lajta: Francis Bacon és a tértől sebzett test (Francis Bacon and the Body Wounded by Space). Filmvilág, September 1987.
[3] Pál Gerzson.
[4] Statement made during the conversation entitled A színek természetes nyelvezete (The Natural Language of Colours).
[5] Pál Gerzson.
[6] Excerpt from the opening speech delivered by Tibor Wehner on 22 December 1999 at the Vigadó Gallery, Budapest.
[7] Excerpt from the opening speech delivered by András Fodor on 16 May 1988 at the Cultural Centre in Heves.
[8] András Fodor.
[9] Tibor Wehner.
[10] A színek természetes nyelvezete (The Natural Language of Colours)