Simon Hantai is the highest priced painter of Hungarian origins registered at the international art market. His paintings can be seen in Ludwig Museum – Museum Of Contemporary Arts, Budapest until 31st August. Over sixty giant paintings of Hantai will be on show at the first exhibition of his lifework in Hungary, many of these paintings have never been seen by the public.

Most of us last heard about Simon Hantai when at the Sotheby’s Auction in Paris in 2013 one of his oil paintings from 1960 was sold for 2,5 million euros. Hantai, who emigrated from Hungary in 1948 and worked in Paris until his death in 2008, is the new favorite of art collectors. In the last decade the price of his paintings tripled. Browsing auctions news we can find dozens of items put up at several hundred thousand euros in deed.

In the beginning, when he belonged to André Breton’s circle, surrealism, then the abstract expressionism influenced the artist, who developed his unique ”pliage” technique of folding and scrunching the canvas before painting by the 60s. As an outstanding figure in the world of abstract painting he represented his new homeland, France at the 1982 Venice Biennale, then he withdrew from the public for several decades while he kept on painting. His works can be found in the most important collections all over the world like the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York, the Musée national d´art moderne and the Musée d´art moderne de la Ville de Paris or in the Vatican Museum. However it was only in the spring of 2013 when the next grand exhibition of his life-work was organized in the Pompidou Center in Paris, which was seen by more than two-hundred thousand visitors.

The curatorship of the exhibition in Ludwig Museum was taken on by the Hantai family in charge of the heritage, which makes it possible to present a dozen of works so far unseen by contemporary art-lovers.

The exhibition is open until the 31st. August 2014.

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