Tihamér Gyarmathy

Budapest, Budapest Galleria, Feher / Fekete photogram by Tihamér Gyarmathy, 1987, illustrated in the exhibition catalogue

The photograms of Tihamér Gyarmathy taken in 1950-51 were printed in 1987 on black and white photos (silver gelatin print) and a large exhibition of them titled 'White Black ' was organised in the Budapest Gallery in February 1987. Of the 17 large prints exhibited in 1987 only three are known to have survived to this day, of which this is one.

According to Zsolt Kishonthy, when Gyarmathy produced this series in the early 1950s he did not know that it joined a wider framework created by the international system of interrelations of constructivism.

"Gyarmathy placed translucent sheets, materials of peculiar texture cut out to resemble vegetable forms between two sheets of glass or he took peculiar motifs from nature placing them in the composition, and the collages assembled this way were illuminated. The smaller ones were illuminated by magnifying glass, the larger ones by floodlight. (Unfortunately the original collages between the glass sheets have not remained extant).

As a result of this technique the characteristic feature of these works is that the bigger they are enlarged the richer in details they will be and the differences in tone will become more perceptible. The collages reflect the transparencies of contour created by the forms, they built up a world from the variations of the neutral colours of black and white which is surrealistic imaginary but at the same time it is continuously full of references to reality. Gyarmathy’s photogram-collages are simultaneously surrealistic and in a strange manner, hyperrealtistic works, since the contours of the elements taken appear in their full genuineness in front of us and they only become visions through the way of their assembling and through their dimensions.”