István Nyári (born 25 February1952, Budapest), a painter awarded with the Mihály Munkácsy Prize (2009) and the Prima regional award (2021), one of the greatest Hungarian icons of hyperrealism.
István Nyári graduated as an advertising graphics major at the Hungarian College of Applied Arts in 1977. He has been active in fine arts since 1978. At the turn of the 70s and 80s he came out with hyperrealistic, photo-like paintings (Csirkeragu (Chicken Stew), 1981, Szombathelyi képtár[1]). He continued to work in the same precise, dispassionate, but very graphic style, pasting together different motifs, for more than a decade. His interest then turned towards the relationship between kitsch and fine art. He created reliefs, objects and compositions infused with this worldview. In addition to his individual exhibitions, his work was part of several group exhibitions in Hungary, the United States, Belgium, the Czech Republic, Great Britain, Spain and Switzerland. The National Portrait Gallery in London selected one of his paintings for display. This work was exhibited for a year in Scotland and Wales. His works have been included in several domestic public collections, and a large portion of them has been acquired by private collectors in Australia, the USA, Switzerland, Austria and Hungary. Since 1994 there have been several publications about his art, not only by renowned Hungarian experts, but also in Switzerland and Spain. The most popular online art magazine of the United States, Juxtapoz[2] also published a lengthy, illustrated article about him, as well as art-sheep magazine at a later date[3]. In 2019, he was included in the list of the most expensive living and dead Hungarian fine artists.[4] Nyári is sympathetic to the Lowbrow movement, but fundamentally he considers himself a pop-surrealist.
His mother was Éva Gera (1996†), his father was Lóránt Nyári (1982†), both painters. He is closely related to Dezső Bokros Birman, one of the most outstanding nude and portrait sculptor of 20th century Hungary.
His first wife was Judit Gink (2009†) textile artist. His second wife was Ibolya Hegyi (2016†), textile artist and art historian. They had one child (Gábor, creative producer at RTL, 1977). His third wife is Mercédesz Birck (EU competence developer and career coach), with whom he had one child (Benjámin, painter, 1988). His grandchildren are Luca (2007), Simon (2011), Áron (2021).
He lived in the United States between 1985 and 1990. From the 2000’s he has been living in Brussels, London, Amsterdam, and Budapest.
“István Nyári is best known for his wall-sized paintings that walk a fine line between (hyper)realism and pop-surrealism. His artwork is often mentioned together with posthumanistic visions, elements bordering on kitsch, absurd situations and phenomena from different subcultures. These reflect the absurdities of the consumer society of the 21st century and the depressive fixations of our objectified environment in a satirical and almost spooky way” (Attila Sirbik, Új Művészet)[5]
The curator of the 2016 exhibition at Műcsarnok, titled “Frissen” (Freshly), described Nyári as follows:
“The paintings of Nyári take us to distances that are usually reserved for music. This artist, however, chose visual arts. He creates with acrylic paint on canvas, while giving our souls and minds divine, childlike freedom and adventures. Adventures we always had the instruments to experience, only we were prevented from seeing them by the image in front of us - we blocked our own view by pretending to be serious. Nyári is entertaining. He sparkles, sharp enough to poke us in the eye and in the heart, coming surprisingly close with magnified images and endless realms of visually inspired thought, causing embarrassing confusion. His work defines him as an outsider, but in many ways, he is very typical of the style of the lowbrow art movement that started in the late 70’s in Los Angeles, and whose main form of expression was painting. This style, appearing from the Californian subculture, also uses the same erotics, kitsch, plastic cartoon characters, kustom pop and sideshow culture, retro illustrations, tattoos and religious art features as the exhibited artworks.” (István Nyári: Ameuropean outsider, mma.hu - straight from the studio[6])
According to Orsolya Szemethy (artmagazin, 2007)[7]:
“if I look at the cruelly concrete still lives of István Nyári, I am overcome by worrisome emotions. Because a Pokémon in itself is not terrifying at all. However, contect reinforces the assumption: I can’t even trust this tiny creature anymore! If there is an error in the Matrix, the small plastic paws will grab a chainsaw and go at the porcelain piglet. There is no cleaning lady who could remove the blood stains from the crime scene: the stage set by the shiny cabinet. The messages are concerning, but the set is breathtaking. Who could resist the superbly perfect smile of a Barbie doll or the soft rose petals, the barocque cavalcade and ethereal lights? After a more thorough examination, of course, we can see that the silky surfaces are a bit too perfect, and they reflect our gaze a bit too harshly. The rose petals start to remind us of the bubbling surface of a freshly skinned piece of meat. From the waist down, even Barbie’s gorgeous body leaves something to be desired. I always used to think that such kind, funny, and deadly ironic signals were important in art, if they were not telling a story (like in the work of Tibor Csernus), but they guide us into the popular culture of microorganisms with scientific thoroughness. The mechanism is similar here. The viewer is pulled into the story being told by the professional execution. The puppets of Csernus are real models, but what they keep on their nightstand in a potential disorder is shown by István Nyári. … When watching the epic Kill Bill movies by Tarantino, we can participate in many a symbolic trial amidst similarly attractive sets… What showed up with Jeff Koons as gold, it shows up as blood here. “
Nyári talking about his own art:
“The metaphysics of the everyday, the philosophy of popular existence, if you wish, a mixing of the taste systems of the masses, confusing the everyday viewer either accidentally or on purpose. At the same time, it makes even the artistically educated visitor either pleasantly tingle or irritated. I think it is very plausible that educated people will feel a visceral resistance to the content of my images, since they include basic taboos and theses of kitsch and I try their patience. But if they made an effort, they might show me and these objects mercy, rethinking the outdated verity of their hardened philosophy. For me, the time that passed between 1974 and today is proof that it taught me to appreciate the greatness of doubt, to discover and grow to love “exiled objects and thoughts”, to overthrow taboos, and to the possibility of questioning everything I learned. 1. What does freedom mean to you in a creative and artistic manner? Does it include a way of self-expression, and, in connection, disturbance? I.Ny.: In the visual, technical sense of the word, there is no disturbance. My art is easy to understand, there is no need for higher artistic knowledge to integrate it. The viewer gets what he sees, everything is easy to recognize and perceive. Naturally, confusion is possible as regards the content and meaning. Everybody thinks differently, they have a different genetic heritage, level of education, upbringing, religion or ateism etc. So if we are talking about disturbance, I may accept that, but this is not for the audience. It is about my own philosophical experiments as deviance against the status quo, the conventional, the bourgeois boredom. If we call this freedom, then the statement is true, however, the risks I take do not always pay off. On the contrary, they might lead to complete rejection. I gladly take this kind of fighting liberty.“ (The greatness of doubt - interview with István Nyári by Attila Sirbik, Új művészet, 8 April 2016.)[8]
In the early stage of his career, he designed album covers for classical and popular music, including the covers of Gammapolis by Omega, Az arc (The Face), and Középeurópai Hobo Blues (Central European Hobo Blues) by Hobo Blues Band. (Full list of work here: [9])
Nyári designed and printed (with Miklós Haraszti) the first covers of Beszélő, a samizdat publication.[10]
He worked as a set designer for Omega, a costume designer for Hobo Blues Band, then he became an artistic partner for Gábor Bachman for the set of Nárcisz és Psyché (Narcissus and Psyche) by Gábor Bódy.
“There was no such position as ‘art director’ in Hungary at the time, we had set designers, costume designers, make-up artists etc., but we didn’t want totally different tastes and styles in the movie. We decided we would be vision designers, and this word in itself contains a shift, because instead of a set, we wanted to create and entire vision. And a generational fight also started. For example, we had to prove to Bódy that we were worthy of getting free rein in the vision, despite being fresh out of university and still very young. We had to justify wanting an influence over not just the set, but also costumes, make-up, lighting, ie. everything. That’s why we had to organize an exhibition of the visual designs of Psyche. Gábor Bachman, Péter Nagy, Péter Janesch and myself started designing, but very soon it was just the two of us, Bachman and me. The finished product consisted of ten large tableaus, which we exhibited in a specifically assigned room at the film factory. I think nobody had to organize such an exhibit before, but in the end we managed to get this position. In the end we even designed the torture chair, we didn’t give the task to the carpenters, because we knew what we wanted. We even looked into the camera sometimes, to see what the cameraman, István Hildebrand was seeing. There was only one man we could not influence, Attila Kovács, who had more of a cartoon movie concept in mind. Looking back, he designed surreal horse-drawn carts that looked like the later Tim Burton movies, but we could not interfere with this, because we didn’t want to. We had a different idea for Psyche, but Bódy, for some reason, went along with it.” (artportal, Kata Balázs, Eszter Ágnes Szabó)[11]
“It is typical of hyperrealism that it tends to select indifferent, everyday objects as a topic. These are segments of reality that impact us reflexively and uncontrolled. However, in Nyári’s work we witness surrealistic visions pasted together from details of photos instead of the mechanical repetition of one slice of reality.”Edit Sasvári“The pictures of Nyári advertise an artificially constructed reality, while awakening dreams an desires in the viewer. They emphasize the “vulgar”, “silly”, and the “lame” as opposed to the strict, and they suggest an eclectic style of painting.”József Készman
“Nyári is balancing: he counters and re-counters consciously. The result is more than surprising: these pictures created order in the Nyári studio that was a model of a chaotic world. Despite the numerous dualities, such as having sharp graphical edges but certain details being lost in the vagueness of sfumato, or some of them being monochromatic, most of these drawings are paintings par excellence.“György Szegő
“Humor and playfulness are definitive characteristics of the pictures of Nyári, even if he often depicts abandonment and loneliness (Tutira elment… (For sure she’s gone), 2007). However, hilarious objects appear in these pictures too, and they create a contrast to the emotions shown.
It used to be a privilege of the court jester to make fun of everything, and to use exactly this to be honest and serious at the same time, and there is a reason that the metaphor of the artist as a clown is common in cultural public thought. Nyári is preserving this, and this clown attitude is obvious in his work.”
