István Sándorfi

Hungarian hyperrealist artist who painted unusual objects and strange people. His unusual style is easily recognizable. The main colors that Sándorfi used in his paintings were blue, violet and grey.

Istvan started painting at an early age. When he was eight, he depicted the participants of the anti-communist uprising and the Soviet tanks that were coming towards them. Art helped him relax after the stressful period in his life when his family emigrated to Germany and France. At the age of 12, he started using oil paints.

The painter had always been very shy and never thought of his works as special. Istvan preferred working at night and mostly used himself as a model because he did not like when others watched him work. Over the course of 15 years, the artist created a series of self-portraits. They were aggressive, shocking and sometimes even scary. However, from 1988 onwards he stopped creating gloomy paintings and often depicted women.

Key ideas:

– The artist always said that for him painting was not a job, but a real necessity. He called art “the philosophy of life”.

– The artist’s paintings are distinguished by an especially heavy, gloomy and mysterious atmosphere. “There is nothing interesting in simply recreating what we see on canvas,” István Sándorfi said.