April 11-June 8, 2025
Gabor Peterdi is one of two important taproots of American Printmaking. Born in Hungary in 1915, Peterdi studied with Stanley William Hayter at his famous, Atelier 15 in Paris as a youth. Surrounded by luminary modernists of the 20th Century like Pablo Picasso and Joan Miro, Peterdi absorbed not only the groundbreaking technical lessons of etching and engraving but also revealed a personal consciousness to the rise of Nazi Germany. In this exhibit drawn from the MMAA permanent collection, these earliest works are benchmarks of history and expressive and sometimes Surreal images that evoke the onslaught of fear and the gathering storm clouds of war in Europe in the 1930s.
Peterdi went on to hunt Nazis in his native Hungary as an enlisted specialist for the US Army then, after the war, was hired by Josef Albers to teach printmaking at Yale University, whereas a full Professor, he stayed for 23 years.