IVANYI LASZLO (born in 1934)
Ivanyi Laszlo was born in Budapest, Hungary, on May 24, 1934.
His father was a tax inspector, with the official title of conseiller des finances publiques. In 1944 German troops occupied their village. The army requisitioned the family home for the billeting of a counter-espionage officer. Weeks later in the course of the Russians advance, a Soviet rocket destroyed their home. In what was left of the house, the Russian army set up a kitchen, during this period the family lived in constant fear of the soldiers. In 1945 the family relocated to his paternal grandfather's home in Soviet occupied Szekesfehervar, Hungary.
Ivanyi returned to school in 1946. His father enrolled him in a secondary school taught by Cistercian monks; he spent much of his time in the monastery's library. In 1948 when the Communist Party nationalized religious schools, he was called upon to denounce Cardinal Mindszenthy. After refusing to denounce the cardinal, Ivanyi was effectively banished from the school. During this time, he continued his piano lessons and won a national arts competition. Jeno Barcsay recommended that he enroll in Academy of Visual Arts in Hungary. Ivanyi's father insisted that he focus on his academic studies. By the time he completed his secondary education the opportunity to attend the Academy of Visual Arts had passed. He went onto the Budapest Conservatory to study piano for a year, winning the Bartok Prize.The following year he enrolled in the Franz Liszt Academy, where Paul Kadosa decided to take Ivanyi under his wing. Later Ivanyi returned to academic studies enrolling in the architecture division of the Polytechnique.
During the 1956 Hungarian revolution, he took part in the events surrounding the Kilián barracks. Fearing reprisals after the Russian army re-established control of the country, he fled across the Austrian border and headed to Paris.
Once in Paris, he enrolled in the Ecole des Beaux-Arts for about a month, the lack of formal classes led him to go out on his own. He did remain enrolled for three or four years in order to satisfy the requirements of his scholarship.
Through friends he became acquainted with Alix de Rothschild, and a great friendship developed. Rothschild brought Ivanyi into the world of Parisian high society which allowed him to earn a living providing piano lessons.
At her estate in Normandy, he met Isaac Stern, Leonard Rose, Eugene lstomin, and Rudolph Serkin and his pianist son Peter.
Ivanyi took part in several group art exhibitions, and had a number of solo art shows. His works are in a number of private collections, ONE National Gay & Lesbian Archives as well as the Musée d'Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris.
1970 : Galerie Nana Stern
1985, 1989, 1990 : Galerie Peinture Fraîche
In 1956 he finished his great serie of cray drawings, the Apocalypse.
The legendary art dealer Kahnweiler encouraged him to go back to figuartive painting.
His early work in the 1960s and 1970s focused on producing expansive, lyrical abstract paintings on paper. Beginning in the 1980s, the artist began to experiment with figurative studies on mylar using color palettes reminiscent of photonegative processes.
In addition to the numerous artworks Ivanyi deposited at ONE, the artist also donated a copy of his diary chronicling his life in Paris in the 1960s and his early relationship with partner Gregoire Bertier.
Intimate, frank, and deeply passionate, this text is a powerful window into the personal life of a gay artist in postwar France. The activity of keeping a diary has been important throughout the artist’s life. Prior to writing the diary now at ONE, which Ivanyi identifies as his “body diary” he recorded a “soul diary” documenting his childhood in Hungary during and after WWII.