Gabor Peterdi (1915 in

Pestújhely Pestújhely (literally: ''New Settlement by Pest'', german: Neustädtl) is one of the northern suburbs of Budapest, the capital of Hungary. It belongs to District XV. History Until the second half of the 19th century, this area belonged to t ...

Hungary Hungary ( hu, Magyarország ) is a landlocked country in Central Europe. Spanning of the Carpathian Basin, it is bordered by Slovakia to the north, Ukraine to the northeast, Romania to the east and southeast, Serbia to the south, Croatia a ...

– 2001 in Stamford,

Connecticut Connecticut () is the southernmost state in the New England region of the Northeastern United States. It is bordered by Rhode Island to the east, Massachusetts to the north, New York to the west, and Long Island Sound to the south. Its cap ...

) was a

Hungarian-American Hungarian Americans ( Hungarian: ''amerikai magyarok'') are Americans of Hungarian descent. The U.S. Census Bureau has estimated that there are approximately 1.396 million Americans of Hungarian descent as of 2018. The total number of people wit ...

painter and printmaker who immigrated to the United States in 1939.Gabor Peterdi: Artwork Search
Smithsonian American Art Museum He enlisted in the US Army and fought in Europe during World War II. He lived and worked primarily in New York and Connecticut, teaching at the

Brooklyn Museum The Brooklyn Museum is an art museum located in the New York City borough of Brooklyn. At , the museum is New York City's second largest and contains an art collection with around 1.5 million objects. Located near the Prospect Heights, Crown H ...

Hunter College Hunter College is a public university in New York City. It is one of the constituent colleges of the City University of New York and offers studies in more than one hundred undergraduate and postgraduate fields across five schools. It also admi ...

and

Yale University Yale University is a private research university in New Haven, Connecticut. Established in 1701 as the Collegiate School, it is the third-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and among the most prestigious in the wo ...

in addition to working at his art.

Early life

Gabor Peterdi was born on September 17, 1915 to parents who were poets; they lived in

, a recently developed northern suburb of Budapest. At the time, this area was still part of the

Austria-Hungary Empire Austria-Hungary, often referred to as the Austro-Hungarian Empire,, the Dual Monarchy, or Austria, was a constitutional monarchy and great power in Central Europe between 1867 and 1918. It was formed with the Austro-Hungarian Compromise of ...

. He started working in art from an early age and at 15 won a

Prix de Rome The Prix de Rome () or Grand Prix de Rome was a French scholarship for arts students, initially for painters and sculptors, that was established in 1663 during the reign of Louis XIV of France. Winners were awarded a bursary that allowed them t ...

to study painting in Italy. After a year, Peterdi went to

Paris Paris () is the capital and most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), making it the 30th most densely populated city in the world in 2020. S ...

, where he studied with the British painter and printmaker

Stanley William Hayter Stanley William Hayter (27 December 1901 – 4 May 1988) was an English painter and printmaker associated in the 1930s with surrealism and from 1940 onward with abstract expressionism. Regarded as one of the most significant printmakers of ...

Atelier 17 Atelier 17 was an art school and studio that was influential in the teaching and promotion of printmaking in the 20th century. Originally located in Paris, the studio relocated to New York during the years surrounding World War II. It moved back ...

."Gabor Peterdi, 85, Artist and Printmaker"
''New York Times,'' 31 August 2001, accessed 27 February 2016 He also studied at the

Académie Julian The Académie Julian () was a private art school for painting and sculpture founded in Paris, France, in 1867 by French painter and teacher Rodolphe Julian (1839–1907) that was active from 1868 through 1968. It remained famous for the number a ...

and the Academie Scandinavien.

Emigration to the US

At about the age of 24, Peterdi emigrated to the United States in 1939, at the time of the beginning of

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

in Europe. He first settled in New York, but joined the Army, serving with the United States in Europe during the war. He established and directed the Graphic Workshop at the

Brooklyn Museum Art School The Brooklyn Museum Art School was a non-degree-granting professional school that opened at the Brooklyn Museum in Brooklyn, New York in the summer of 1941. The Brooklyn Museum Art School provided instruction for amateur artists as well until Janua ...

. Among his students after World War II was Edmond Casarella, who developed an innovative technique for layering cardboard as a medium to be carved like woodcuts. Peterdi taught at Hunter College (1952-60) and at the

Yale School of Art The Yale School of Art is the art school of Yale University. Founded in 1869 as the first professional fine arts school in the United States, it grants Masters of Fine Arts degrees to students completing a two-year course in graphic design, painti ...

(1960-87). He was a major influence on younger American printmakers, including

Robert Bero Robert Bero (1941–2007) was an American artist and print maker who won critical acclaim for his detailed depictions of trees and landscapes. Best known for his etchings and woodcuts, Bero also worked in pen and ink, crayon, pastel, pencil, water ...

and Danny Pierce.

Chuck Close Charles Thomas Close (July 5, 1940 – August 19, 2021) was an American painter, visual artist, and photographer who made massive-scale photorealist and abstract portraits of himself and others. Close also created photo portraits using a very l ...

served as his assistant while working on his MFA at Yale from 1962 to 1964. He was associated with the New York branch of

. In April 1963, Peterdi traveled to Alaska, lecturing briefly at the University of Alaska-Fairbanks and visiting Anchorage, Nome, Kotzebue, and Point Hope with former student Danny Pierce. Over the following two years, he worked on paintings and prints related to his Arctic experience. In 1964 he was the recipient of a

Guggenheim Fellowship Guggenheim Fellowships are grants that have been awarded annually since by the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation to those "who have demonstrated exceptional capacity for productive scholarship or exceptional creative ability in the ar ...

. Through this period when New York was the center of

Abstract Expressionism Abstract expressionism is a post–World War II art movement in American painting, developed in New York City in the 1940s. It was the first specifically American movement to achieve international influence and put New York at the center of the ...

, Peterdi maintained his interest in and exploration of the natural world in his work. Peterdi died on August 13, 2001 in Stamford, Connecticut. Peterdi's work is held by the

Fine Arts Museum of San Francisco The Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco (FAMSF), comprising the de Young Museum in Golden Gate Park and the Legion of Honor in Lincoln Park, is the largest public arts institution in the city of San Francisco. The permanent collection of the Fin ...

, the

Cleveland Museum of Art The Cleveland Museum of Art (CMA) is an art museum in Cleveland, Ohio, located in the Wade Park District, in the University Circle neighborhood on the city's east side. Internationally renowned for its substantial holdings of Asian and Egyptian ...

, the

National Gallery of Art The National Gallery of Art, and its attached Sculpture Garden, is a national art museum in Washington, D.C., United States, located on the National Mall, between 3rd and 9th Streets, at Constitution Avenue NW. Open to the public and free of char ...

, the

Metropolitan Museum of Art The Metropolitan Museum of Art of New York City, colloquially "the Met", is the largest art museum in the Americas. Its permanent collection contains over two million works, divided among 17 curatorial departments. The main building at 1000 ...

, and the

Smithsonian American Art Museum The Smithsonian American Art Museum (commonly known as SAAM, and formerly the National Museum of American Art) is a museum in Washington, D.C., part of the Smithsonian Institution. Together with its branch museum, the Renwick Gallery, SAAM holds o ...

, among other institutions."Gabor Peterdi"
Art Encyclopedia

References

External links

images of Peterdi's work
at the Smithsonian American Art Museum {{DEFAULTSORT:Peterdi, Gabor 1915 births 2001 deaths American printmakers Hungarian emigrants to the United States Atelier 17 alumni