By Jenő Szilágyi
Published on
A retrospective exhibition of the oeuvre of 80-year-old Sándor Pinczehelyi has opened at the M21 Gallery in the Zsolnay Cultural Quarter in Pécs. Long before the Iron Curtain came down, the artist was already combining Soviet totalitarian insignia with the symbols of Western affluence.
The exhibition features 150 works by the Munkácsy Prize-winning artist, who has been named Artist of Merit and Artist of Excellence, offering a comprehensive selection spanning six decades of his career.
“In European art circles I am known as someone who, in the earlier socialist period, worked with symbols such as the hammer and sickle, the paving stone and the star. One such piece is my iconic work with the hammer and sickle you can see here. There is virtually no art book dealing with that period in which this work is not reproduced.”
Divided into nine thematic sections, the genre-spanning exhibition guides visitors from his earliest works to the present day through photographs, paintings, spatial sculptures, prints and enamel pieces. Alongside well-known works, visitors can also see pieces that have never been published before. The exhibition also presents works that were shown at the exhibitions in Turin and Berlin.