Imre Égerházi was born in Hajdúhadház, Hungary, 1st of September 1925. He was a descendant of János Egerházi Képíró, a 17th-century fresco artist from Mezőbánd, Transylvania.
In the early 1930s, when he was a small child, his family moved to Debrecen. There he in the fifties attended the Free School of Fine Arts, studying under the painter József Menyhárt. At the turn of 2024 and 2025, a centenary commemorative exhibition will open on the seventh of December at the Modem in Debrecen entitled Sheafs are dancing – Égerházi Imre 100. He formed a very distinguished recognizable painting world, an individual picture writing. We cannot say that this came with no prefaces: the editing order of his pictures were formed by folk art and the secession, post-impression effected his colour culture, the Alföld painting formed his artistic behaviour, but the final result shows Égerházi Imre’s painting character. Not only in the technical, editing and composing characteristics, is his art individual, but also in their internal incentives for topic selection and in an honest interpretation. Originally and determinately his own life, environment, social and personal experiences formed his art.
Despite the determined artistic editing, building and abstraction his paintings are not foreign or abstract as the emphasized phenomenon, sceneries, people, houses, objects and signs carry contents with reality. The block like, outlining, strong shapes are built up by an atomic element performing surface treatment, which were applied along with an individual pointillism. For him this way of colour building serves the artistic message: The observer is led by the detailed meticulousness of the plot and he is burdened by the weight of a non-summary expression. The details are harmonized into a picture on the whole surface of the screen.
With his colourful palette he served and with endless energy and working ability, he organized his homeland’s connection into the domestic and international art life. He initiated and later participated in forming art plants and creative groups and then he restlessly did all the thousands of bits and pieces, which went along with it all. He was the intellectual leader of art groups. He has a set of pictures, which were made after returning from the gate of death, after a heart attack. Many, who also experienced something similar tried to explain it with words, but his paintings give the vision of a painter with the force of reality. These over world messages are signifying for me: as he wished, he became a painter, he succeeded, his novelty got strengthened and where he is now, I believe, he cannot cease from being it.
A series of 9 paintings, based on his near-death experiences, will be shown in a separate room. This is the first time since their creation that this extraordinary series of works has been shown together. In addition to the works of art on display, the exhibition’s creators will also show an animated film made from the near-death paintings and Imre Égerházi will narrate his experiences.