Rudolf Bér

b. 1924 — d. 2004

Rudolf Bér was born in Hungary in 1924. He graduated from the Academy of Fine Arts in 1950 as a student of AURÉL BERNÁTH and GYULA RUDNAY. In 1974 he was awarded the Munkácsy Prize, Hungary’s highest accolade to an artist. He is a first class large-scale painter; in the seventies he did several mural paintings in secco and inlay technique. One of his murals, a secco of 80 square meters, decorates the University of Budapest. In 1980 he won the Gold Medal and Fellowship of the Academia D’Italia. Since the 1960’s, he has taken part in every major national exhibition at home and has repeatedly shown in Italy, France, Germany, Russia, and Switzerland. Rudolf Bér has a very strong spiritual energy that speeds up the picturesque excitement of every work. Power and Vigor - these are the first words that come to mind while viewing his paintings. Showers of color pour down upon you, vibrant yellows, prismatically broken greens, sparkling reddish blues, lilac-ly resting browns. One cannot take inventory of the quantity of shades. His paintings are a psychoanalysis of reality. Through his expressive symbols, we find freedom of spirit in his lively, rhythmical paintings. Bér is an optimist - taking into consideration that optimism is not descriptivism - but awareness of life. He is an important complete artist, who successfully combines the unique language of knowledge, meditation, and sensitivity that touches the borders of the universal world. EXHIBITIONS: 1959, 1965, 1971, 1979, 1983, 1986, 1987, 1988, 1989, 1993, 1994, 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004 Budapest 1970, 1972, 1973, 1975, 1978, 1983, 1997, 1998, 2001, 2004 Bologna 1972, 1973, 1974, 1978 Naples 1974 Luino 1972, 1973, 1974 Florence 1974, 1976, 1982 Parma 1979, 1982 Lugano, Switzerland 1985 Brussels 1991, 1999 Vienna 1991 Zürich 1997, 1999, 2000, 2001 Germany 1993, 1997, 1998, 2004 Dallas PRIZES: 1948 Szinyei Prize 1955 Gold Medal, Youth Festival 1956 Derkovits Prize 1974 Munkácsy Prize 1980 Gold Medal and Fellowship, Academia D’Italia REFERENCES: Fitz, Péter: Contemporary Hungarian Art Lexicon; Budapest, Enciklopédia Kiadó, 1999, Vol. 1, pp. 226-227. Seregélyi, György: Hungarian Painters and Graphic Artists Lexicon 1800-1988. Szeged 1988 ed., p. 64. P.Sz.T.: Contemporary Hungarian Painters and Sculptors. Budapest 1985, p. 51. Szánto, Tibor: Pictura Hungarica. 1971 ed., Vol. I. Biográf: Who’s Who In Hungary. 1990 ed., p. 59.