Szerényi in the Lurch
Gábor Szerényi is a graphic journalist, caricaturist and autonomous artist. And he has ‘many other personas’, which, together, provide the image of a man who is a creative and public figure. He has a voice of jovial wisdom but also one of sarcasm as a writer, and for a long time – whenever asked – he was often the face and editor of popular television programmes on culture and art.
Where did all this come from? I think he would agree with me that the blows dealt him by twentieth-century Eastern European history had become the source of his creative energy. His talent is an emotional surplus. But, with the mind of a rational analyst, he has built an impressive career, both as a graphic artist and a writer, drawing on his and his ancestors’ experiences and on their consistently ‘twisted’ lessons. It is perhaps why one of his main subjects is the pen, which comes to life in his drawings, whether written or engraved.
His paternal family hails from Edelény and its environs. They were inn-keepers and later, after the early death of his grandfather, his father, Emil – or “Papa” –, worked first as an accountant and then as a petrol station attendant in Miskolc; he was also a chess player, an opera enthusiast, and even a singer. In order to come to terms with the diverging situations and milieus of his life, he was a keen observer of his surroundings and a brilliant sketcher, adding commentary to his portraits. Gábor wrote his father’s life story in the caricaturist department’s periodical Fonák [Inside-out] and published it together with his effortlessly executed drawings, which served as a concrete precursor of his own world. In the press predating the era of photography, ‘drawn news’ filled written accounts with life. The critical branch of the genre soon developed, with artists expressing their sarcastic and personal commentary and often philosophical views through precisely rendered yet distorted lines. However, the need for speed eventually put paid to the craftsmanship of drawings made for periodicals. The genre of the brilliantly drawn critical commentary flourished in twentieth-century pamphlets, back in the palmy days of peace.
Peace, if there was any. Gábor’s father, Emil Szerényi, served as a regular soldier during the early 1940s, when territories were returned to Hungary, but he survived the hell of World War II as a forced labour serviceman. His wife and two children did not survive the war; all his family members except his sibling, who was a veterinarian, perished in Auschwitz. Emil did not give up on life after the war and started a family again, attended drawing lessons in Huber Dési’s circle, even making drawings in a sanatorium… and in the meantime, his family’s bourgeois apartment was ‘sliced up’ and reallocated as co-tenancies.
Emil became a father again at an elderly age but died soon after. His son, Gábor was regarded as a problem child in the ‘lumpenised eight district school’ in Budapest he attended and sent to Sümeg, a beautiful small town in the Balaton Uplands, where he stayed at the dormitory of the historic Bishop’s Palace. His curiosity often took him to the practical workshops, held as part of the agricultural vocational training. Today, when thinking back to the influences in his life, Maulbertsch, whose frescoes in the Catholic church in Sümeg he was fascinated with. Around the same time, as a fan of the popular comics magazine Pif, he started corresponding with French comics artist Marcel Gotlib. (What a coincidence: Gotlib is of Hungarian origin...) He rebelled. He desperately missed Budapest. He hid postcards in-between the pages of his school books: a pinch of Gellért Hill and a sip of the Chain Bridge.
The condensed imagination and pictorial lyricism that he resorted to in the rigorous school environment, continued in his later works too: pens, ties, clock faces and other banal objects came to life again and again in his drawings. The compass, enlisted in the mandatory school equipment, became his regular tool, and grew into his much-drawn and intimate model.
During the years in Sümeg, Szerényi was already looking for friends among the objects of his everyday life. To quote Tamás Vekerdy, “…and there’s some anticipation there, intently mixed in with his attention / It can’t be that it’s only this much… / It can’t be that the world is only this much. / Sunt lacrimae rerum, objects have tears, as it seems they also have a soul… / Does the sky open up, again and again, between two lines? / Is there something hidden in this unbearable world, which we have grown weary of yet love so much? And if there is, anything, it’s good enough.”
Gábor completed the third year of his schooling at the József Eötvös Secondary School in Budapest, i.e. at its evening course since he had to work to help his family make ends meet: he worked as a bellhop at the Hotel Astoria. Then, he was a technical draughtsman at the Városépítési Tervező Intézet (Budapest Institute for Urban Development), where Imre Makovecz had a studio at the time. He was an avid reader of books by Károly Kós and made friends with writer Gyula Hernádi, who viewed history with creative sarcasm. He learnt how to do screen-printing, and printed maps and graphic pieces. He was preparing to apply for the Academy of Fine Arts, but after the demonstrations of 15 March 1973, those ‘in the know’ clearly told him that it would be to no avail. He was treated with the same negative bias when he was drafted into the army. From 1975, he attended the ‘creativity workshop’ of the Ganz-MÁVAG Cultural Centre, from which the Fafej (Blockhead) and then the Indigo groups emerged with charismatic experimentalist artist Miklós Erdély at their helm. In 1978, he participated in the self-exhibition, held at the Club of Young Artists: he and his fellow artists temporarily moved into the exhibition space of the club’s basement and planned to organise the first ever art reality show in Hungary. They made drawings for everything, including the registration cards, but they were turned out of their own exhibition at closing time. Gábor had many artist friends, and, gifted with a great sense of humour, he was the heart and soul of the party. One of his artist friends, György Olajos, introduced him to the then privileged literary weekly, Élet és Irodalom [Life and Literature, abbreviated as ÉS], where the fine arts column, held in high esteem as if an institution unto itself, was led by the great poet László Nagy, who Gábor Szerényi still regards as a master. László Nagy recommended that he should ‘allow more air’ for his main subjects, for “spiritual agglomeration”, and fished out drawings from Szerényi’s portfolio folder that he thought were unfinished.
For twelve years, until the change in the political system in Hungary, virtually hidden from society, Szerényi wrote production reports and workers’ reports for the publication of the pharmaceutical company EGYT (today called EGIS), where previously, István Örkény was also ‘allowed to work’ when he was sidelined after the Revolution of 1956. In the meantime, Szerényi contributed drawings to many places as an outside contractor; he still publishes his work in Magyar Nemzet [Hungarian Nation]. Then, after a long break, this year, on his 70th birthday, the periodical ÉS devoted an entire issue to his graphic art, with the laudation written by István Sinkó. For years, he has contributed articles and graphic pieces to the periodical Országút – Művészet / Tudomány / Közélet [Highway – Art / Science / Public Life] and has been an illustrator for the journal of the University of Győr, titled Jog-Állam-Politika [Law – State – Politics]. His caricatures were also published in the satirical magazine Ludas Mátyás [Matthias, the Goose-boy], relaunched last year but only lasting eleven issues. He works with great enthusiasm since he loves bringing joy to his readers, which he only realised after Tibor Wehner’s article on him. Instead of the narrow audience of exhibitions, he prefers wider publicity since his graphic works in the press reach readers at a more personal, almost intimate level.
In the last quarter of the twentieth century and the first quarter of the twenty-first, Szerényi found a happy medium in his drawings and in his words alike (working for radio and television): those who know him personally can see how much he thrives on interpreting and reporting news with scathing irony, yet with humour. In addressing ‘problems’ with a sharp or emotional tone, he lets us choose between a sophisticated and philosophical or a ‘flatter’ and more general reading. He has been doing this for decades. His effortless lines and patch-like highlight effects are captivating, while inviting us to think responsibly. Gábor Szerényi’s work and personality evoke the past milieu of Budapest companies in the virtual cafés of his notebook pages. At his Műcsarnok exhibition, organised ‘out of spite’, visitors can see graphic pieces and caricatures of lasting value selected by assistant curator Éva Markovits and the artist.
György Szegő DLA
curator of the exhibition