KONOK, Tamás

KONOK, Tamás Painter (Budapest, 9th January 1930 - )  1945-1949: College of Fine Arts, Budapest, master: Aurél Bernáth. He lives and works simultaneously in Budapest, Paris, and Zurich. 1955: Award for Young Creative Artists; 1958: Derkovits Award; 1963 the scholarship of the H. Hertford Foundation (New York); 1997: the knight of the é' Ordre du Mérite; The Award of the Society of Hungarian Painters; 1998: Kossuth Award; 2005: the civic section medal of the Legion of Honor of the Hungarian Middle Cross. His paintings constitute a significant and determining section of Modern Hungarian Painting. Following the completion of his studies he began producing works in a figural style. In 1958 he spent a half-year in Paris, at the influence of which he began mixing nature oriented modes of depiction with those of abstraction. He once again visited Paris in 1959-1960, which again lead to a significant change in his method of painting. He prepared monotypes based primarily on line structures, the arrangements of which were similar to those of montages. The defining lyrical nonfigurative portrayal mode typical of his works developed during the course of the 1970's. Constructivist traditions were very strong in Hungarian Fine Arts (e.g.: Lajos Kassák, László Moholy-Nagy), which around the end of the 1960's, mixing with hard-edge painting once again gained popularity (Imre Bak, János Fajó, István Nádler). Konok did not gain influence from these traditions, due partly to the relief works he prepared for buildings, his style of expression became much more lyrical and loose in its essence. He participated in the Geometrische Abstraktion exhibition in Zurich in 1983, where such significant representatives of the style were present as J. Albers, A. Herbin, F. Morellet, F. Picabia, etc. In his compositions, painted with harmonic colors, and masterfully produced thin lines, a number of geometric elements of different sizes appeared (e.g.: Festmény szürke alapon /Painting on gray background/, 1975; Akcentus /Accent/, 1976). In his works the layers of paint, placed onto one another, the base factures, geometrical forms, and system of lines gain form and composition building qualities. (e.g.: Prélude, 1994; Jel /Sign/, 1998).

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