It gives us great pleasure to present Gabor Peterdi’s post-war paintings on paper and canvas, alongside prints—chiefly etching & engravings, created through a parallel practice. Spanning the years from 1948 to 1985, our selection demonstrates Peterdi’s evolution from the Surrealist engravings he developed in Paris in the 1930s at Stanley William Hayter’s Atelier 17, to the more observational and representational art he produced in the aftermath of WWII. This transition reflects Peterdi’s growing focus on depicting the world around him and drawing endless inspiration from nature.
Peterdi commenced a long and distinguished teaching career at Brooklyn College in 1948, followed by a position at Hunter College in the 1950s, and ultimately, at Yale University, where he served as a professor from 1960 until his retirement. An early 1950s move to Connecticut led him back to the observed landscape as subject, one that had been meaningful and essential to him since his precocious childhood in suburban Budapest.
Peterdi’s masterful abilities are evident in the making of his paintings, where color passages in oil paint become informed by, and equal to his engraved line. The paintings exude confidence, testament to the forethought required to produce rich, elegant prints as combined with the assured focus of burin engraving. Peterdi is part of the grand tradition of painter-engravers, a lineage that includes Albrecht Dürer and extends through his contemporaries, Hayter and Joan Miró. Like those renowned artists, Peterdi’s printmaking and painting practices were deeply intertwined.
We at Dolan/Maxwell are deeply honored to share this extraordinary body of work.
