Ferenc Lantos was one of the most significant geometric abstract artists in the Central-European region. As a student of Abstraction-Création member Ferenc Martyn, he was delved into the current Parisian abstract trends in 1940s in Hungary, and developed an own geometric language built on the mentioned international approach. Because of this special situation and his talent, despite the isolation created by socialism, his art has progressed in parallel with international practice, especially in 1960s and 1970s. With his enamel artworks, and land art experiments as well as his theoretical concept, Lantos is also considered to be a unique, original visual thinker all over the world.
He depicted the entire functioning of nature not by turning to abstraction, but along the lines of a concept built from geometric elements. Nevertheless, he cannot be classified as a traditional geometric-concrete artist, since he never excluded the natural basis. In his works he explored the creation of nature by geometrizing the pattern of forms found in nature and made an analytical visual language based on the micro-macrosystem of the world, putting the circle form as the basic scheme of it. Lantos applied this visual method in wide technical range, such as paintings, enamels, graphics, etc.
Lantos was particularly concerned with the theme of water, including the motif of waves or the difference between ’seen and experienced’ coastal landscape, which is the main subject of the exhibition and an exciting reflection on the Danubiana’s space and concept. The show features paintings, drawings, enamels (land art works and architectural exterior designs) from the extensive Lantos collection of the Zsdrál Art Gallery, and curated by Flóra Mészáros, an expert on Lantos and on international abstraction.
Ferenc LANTOS was born in Pécs in 1929, and died in Balatonberény in 2014, in Hungary. Lantos studied painting at the Hungarian Academy of Fine Arts of Budapest, also had become a painting instructor and biology teacher, later he obtained a DLA degree, too. Despite of the masters of his studies, he considered his master to be Ferenc Martyn, who was a well-acknowledged avantgarde artist. Lantos mainly worked as a fine arts teacher in Pécs, meanwhile he supported the new abstract formations, e.g. he founded the Pécs Workshop (1969). He was the head of the Department of Painting of the University of Pécs in 1990s, and together with his wife, the pianist Mária Apagyi, he established the Martyn Ferenc Liberal Art School, which still follows their Bauhaus-inspired education method built on the relationship among nature, music and fine arts.
