An exhibition of the works of János Balázs, a Roma painter from Salgótarján, opened on Thursday in the Fekete Ház. The exhibition was opened by art historian Gabriella Shah, director of the Béla Dornyay Museum in Salgótarján, from which the special paintings came to Szeged.
He said that János Balázs was born in Alsókubin in 1905. He became a half-orphan at the age of five, at which time the family moved to Salgótarján, to the gypsy settlement in Pécskődomb, where they lived in a shack they built themselves. As a child, he sought the company of the elderly instead of his contemporaries, the characters of the tales he heard from them are recurring motifs in his paintings. He completed only two elementary classes, went to the front at the age of 32, and was released from the prisoner of war at the age of 43. He returned home mentally and physically broken, on the gypsy hill, away from people, and continued his life and work as a hermit. He ate mushrooms and berries, heated himself with collected coal and wood, and learned from books and newspapers collected from garbage and acquired a wide education. He also painted on chair covers and rag sacks, sometimes his neighbors brought him food and raw materials for painting.
His creations radiate the love of life close to nature, the dilapidated coziness of the gypsy settlement’s furrows. At the end of the sixties, he noticed the art of a wider audience, but the sudden popularity and the forced move out of the putri took a toll on him. Paralyzed, he spent the last years of his life confined to bed. Gabriella Shah also said that, nowadays, six million forints have already been sold at auction for her painting.
