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HINCZ, Gyula Painter, graphical artist (Budapest 17th May, 1904 – Budapest 26th January, 1986)  <?xml:namespace prefix = o /> 1922-1929: Hungarian College of Fine Arts, masters: Gyula Rudnay, Vaszary János. During the course of his study travel tour of Germany in 1928, he became acquainted with H. Walden though Hugó Scheiber. Then in 1929, with the help of Moholy-Nagy he partook in an exhibition in the Sturm Gallery. In the year of 1928 he became a member of the Új Művészek Egyesülete (Society of New Artists), then in 1929 of the Képzőművészek Új Társasága (New Society of Fine Artists). Between 1930 and 1931 he held a Roman Scholarship. In the year of 1943 he painted in Transylvania. Between 1947 and 1948 he traveled on study-tours to Korea, China, and Vietnam. Between 1946 and 1949 he was a teacher at the Hungarian College of Applied Arts. 1949-1963: A lecturer at the Hungarian College of Fine Arts. He received the Munkácsy Award in both 1952 and in 1957, and the Kossuth Award in 1958. Between 1958 and 1963 he was the principal of the Hungarian College of Applied Arts. 1964: Meritorious Artist; 1968: Outstanding Artists’ Award. His ductile works are characterized by openness, vitality, and expressive power. Due to his outstanding technical knowledge and pliable readiness to melt into his style that of a variety of artists a vast variety of masters and styles had significant influence upon his works. In his early drawings and copper etchings the formal style the cubo-expressive activists may be noticed, with manieristically stretched forms, and dramatizing light-shadow contrasts. His copper etchings prepared between 1925 and 1926, making use of their sensitive factorial effects show similarities to the etchings prepared by Aurél Bernáth between 1922 and 1924. In 1926 he was deeply moved by the Surrealism of Paris, and was one of the first to bring periodicals and proclamations home to Hungary. The ink drawings of the East, especially Picasso had the greatest effect on his works, throughout the course of his career. He also adopted Classicist motifs into his post cubist works. These images produced with ink, pastels, and tempera, with the decorative abstracting style convey a uniquely nostalgic dream world. Within the scope of Hincz’s images almost cosmic visions appear in kaleidoscope-like stirring, which cannot however break completely free from the strongly decorative style of the artist. Due to his French ties his works fit in well with the exhibition of the New Society of Fine Artists. He labeled his biomorphic, abstract compositions “ameba-isms”. Between 1929 and 1932 he prepared abstract stage designs for theaters, in 1933 he also designed a book pavilion. In the second half of the 1930’s he was one of the significant representatives of the renewed expressive movement of Hungary. He painted a number of gloomy paintings of the Lake Balaton around the beginning of the 1940’s. His visit to Transylvania in 1943 had a renewing effect on his usage of colors. In a number of landscape paintings his strong inclination and attraction, arising the Transylvanian Saxon family values and traditions, was depicted, through renewed, expressive colors. Following the second World War he continued his abstract compositions, also preparing collages. His stage designs, graphical works, and Anatole France illustrations signal the wide scale of his oeuvre. During the course of his travels to Korea, China, and Vietnam between 1947 and 1948 he was influenced by the calligraphic line-culture of these ancient oriental cultures. The constant experimentation of the artist, untied to a single artistic form lead Hincz to the obligatory Social-Realist commission, i.e. the painting of his painting entitled May the 1st. Between 1950 and 1958 he worked upon his series entitled Béke /Peace/. Folkloristic elements were included into his works, aesthetic dogmas of the period, which were represented by his immortalizing of the dresses and clothing of different regions of the country. Alongside the obligatory themes, and genre scenes, his intimate image secured his light painting style. With his clear line-drawings he was worthily awarded the Silver Award of the book exhibition of Leipzig in 1959. His volume was published under the title Toll és Ecset /Pen and Brush/, in Budapest in the year of 1965. Beside his intimate graphical works, he also completed monumental, decorative commissions. Based on his plans prepared between 1956 and 1959 the tapestries of the Fészek Klub (Art Club in Budapest): the Népek barátsága /Friendship of Peoples/, and the Martinász, as well as the tapestries of the Agricultural University of Debrecen, in 1967. He designed a mosaic work for Inota, and a Graphite for the hall of the Park Hotel. His oil works are also strongly colored monumental compositions, in which he condensed vexed nature of his time, in montages, the wish for peace into elemental symbols, his belief in human knowledge and creation into Picasso-like motifs and figures. In other cases he drew from ancient Indian cultures of South American Societies, stressing the freedom of these peoples. In the year of 1970 within the framework of the sixteen-piece glass mosaic, in building V/2 of the Technical University of Budapest, he was given almost complete freedom for abstraction in the portrayal of the themes of Technology and Science. A strong current of forma-rhythm as well as a completely new understanding of space characterize his work. It was after this that he prepared the large scale mosaic of the Agricultural University of Gödölő, and the glass windows of SOTE (Hungarian University of Medicine, in Budapest). He maintained his experimental attitude all throughout his life. He attempted works such as small plastics, as well as burned ceramics. His wife was often the model for his works, after the death of whom, in 1983, he almost completely quite his artistic activities.   (Translated by: Vladimir Végh)