Simon Hantai Biography
Simon Hantaï was born in Biatorbágy in 1922 and died in Paris in 2008.
Hantaï was a Hungarian painter who became French in 1966 and his art is generally associated with abstractionism. After practicing surrealism in the 1950s, Hantaï developed new artistic solutions such as the "pliage" technique, which made him famous throughout the world. He challenged painting with works made only of dust or thick writing, collaborating with the intellectuals of his era. Among his most famous works are the spectacular "Scrittura Rosa", "A Galla Placidia" and the "Mariales" series, which establish the memory of Italian art in a magnetic and intense painting.
Born into a Swabian family in the Hungarian Danube, whose name was changed from Handl to Hantai, Simon Hantai began studying painting at the Academy of Fine Arts in Budapest under the guidance of Vilmos Aba Novák and Béla Kontuly. In 1948 he obtained a scholarship from the Hungarian government to the Hungarian Academy in Rome. He toured Italy on foot and then went to Paris, where he soon came into contact with André Breton. In 1960 he developed an innovative painting technique, called "pliage", which consisted of folding the canvas and made him famous. His early works were inspired by landscape themes. From 1967 to 1968 he worked in the village of Meuns, in the Fontainbleau forest, where he approached themes with human figures. After abandoning painting in 1982, since 1994 he has worked mainly with the technique of serial reproduction. He also illustrated books (for example, those with the works of the poet and childhood friend Ferenc Juhász).
In 2014, five years after the death of Simon Hantaï, the French Academy in Rome hosted the artist's first retrospective in Italy, retracing the artist's entire activity.
