Budapest is hosting a major retrospective of György Kemény, the artist widely regarded as the father of Hungarian pop art. The exhibition, titled GYURIII!, runs at the New Gallery of Budapest City Hall and offers a comprehensive look at a career that has spanned more than seven decades.
Kemény, now 90, is best known for the posters that have defined Budapest's streetscape for generations. Unlike many graphic designers, he treated each poster as an autonomous work of art rather than mere applied graphics. His visual identity work for the Budapest Festival Orchestra and the Budapest Art Expos of the 1990s cemented his influence on the city's cultural landscape.
From Paris to Pop
A decisive turning point came in 1963, when Kemény travelled to Paris. There he encountered American pop art and the collages of Max Ernst, experiences that fundamentally reshaped his artistic direction. The pop-art pieces he created upon returning to Hungary are now considered iconic works in the nation's art history.
The exhibition traces Kemény's constant stylistic evolution. After a vibrant pop-art phase, he moved into black-and-white surrealist drawings, then expressive felt-tip and chalk works. From the 2000s onward, digital technology became his primary creative tool, leading to a series of abstract digital compositions.
Among the highlights is a life-size recreation of the secco mural Kemény painted in the maid's room of Ferenc Kőszeg's Budapest flat. That mural is regarded as one of the emblematic works of Hungarian pop art.
Art historian Dávid Fehér described Kemény's approach as "art on familiar terms: directness, openness, informality, humour and playfulness." The artist's own recollections, available in the exhibition, reveal a man deeply attached to Budapest and passionately in love with the beauty of life.
Kemény's works are held in major collections including the Hungarian National Gallery, the Ludwig Museum in Budapest, and the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis. He has received the Munkácsy Prize, Hungary's highest state award for visual artists, and international recognition: first prize in Warsaw and a bronze medal in Japan.
The retrospective comes at a time of renewed interest in Hungary's postwar avant-garde. For context, a recent exhibition in Budapest used modern technology to reconstruct Roman faces from Aquincum, showing how the city continues to blend historical and contemporary art. Meanwhile, Hungary's political landscape has seen shifts, with former Foreign Minister Szijjártó leaving parliament for a role at BYD, a reminder that the country's cultural and political spheres often intersect.
GYURIII! runs through late 2026 at the New Gallery of Budapest City Hall. It includes reproductions of paintings, posters, drawings, digital works and sculptures, offering visitors a rare chance to see the full arc of an artist who has remained creatively restless well into his ninth decade.
