Endre Bálint (1914-1986)

Visual artist. Known as one of the most important figures of Hungarian art between the two world wars and after 1945, Endre Bálint initially studied to become a commercial graphic designer but soon turned towards painting and then went on to create sculptures, photomontages, collages, monotypes and even wrote poems. In the 1930s he became friends with Dezső Korniss and Lajos Vajda, artists who worked in Szentendre at the time. After World War II, Bálint destroyed most of his early works. In 1946 he joined the European School, an artist group with the aim to establish connections between East-Central European and Western European art. Between 1957-1961 he lived in Paris where his works were exhibited several times. It was in Paris that he started making montages. Recurring motifs and symbols used by Bálint include details of Hungarian folk art, imaginary creatures, dream-like figures and organic forms. Extracted from their familiar contexts, these very elements become central in his often ironic and grotesque photomontages which he called ‘associative unconscious self-confessions’.