Jubilee exhibition

On 5 March 2016, at 18.00, the Szekler Museum of Ciuc opened a collection exhibition celebrating the 80th birthday of András Gaál, looking back on the artist's work.

András Gaál has painted around 1500 paintings, which are in public and private collections in many countries of the world, while he has also donated a permanent exhibition to his home village of Ditrău, of which he is also an honorary citizen. Throughout his rich career, he has received numerous honours, awards and awards, and his work has been published in several books. He is a true art historian, whose life and work have been devoted to art and creation.

Born on 9 March 1936 in Ditrău, he studied at the High School of Music and Fine Arts in Târgu Mures between 1950 and 1954, and then continued his studies at the Ion Andreescu Academy of Fine Arts in Cluj-Napoca, where he studied painting and pedagogy. (1954-1959) András Gaál was a drawing teacher in Miercurea Ciuc between 1959 and 1999, initially at the local lyceum, and then from 1972 at the then established elementary and secondary art school. During his four decades as a teacher, he has given birth to a whole generation of artists and art lovers. In the sixties and seventies of the last century, he found his vision, which moved on the borderline between the concrete and the abstract, in almost all techniques (oil, watercolour, pastel, acrylic), and used it to paint the topographical and settlement features of Szeklerland with a strong expressionism and disciplined constructivism, filtering through himself. His painting is also enriched by figural compositions, portraits and monumental works. In 1974, together with the journalist Lajos Zöld, they founded the Friendship Art Camp at Lăzarea, which in three decades has created one of the largest permanent collections in Transylvania and Romania. In 2003, András Gaál followed his children to Pannonhalma, Hungary, where he organised art camps, as well as in several other Hungarian towns, and over the years he participated in art camps in several European and Asian countries. He has also maintained a presence in Transylvania, spending several months each year in Izvorul Mureșului.

On the occasion of the anniversary, the Miercurea Ciuc Publishing House is publishing a monograph on András Gaál, which, in addition to an interview with Ferenc Székedi and summarizing data, also includes eighty reproductions of the artist's works.