Magyar News, 1991. szeptember-1992. augusztus (2. évfolyam, 1-12. szám)

1992-02-01 / 6. szám

JÓZSEF DÓMJÁN, MASTER OF COLOR WOODCUTS

Being a newcomer, I wasn’t quite familiar with the ways and customs of America. To me the word tuxedo didn’t mean much. It could have been anything. This time it was a park, Tuxedo Park. As I was told it had forest areas, a lake, a country club, 29 millionaires, an artist, a gate with security guards, and miles of high wall enclosing it. They did not make tuxedos here, but at least I learned that in America the “szmoking” is the tuxedo.

All this impressed me but not as much as my friend, the artist, József Dómján. After many years, it was good to see his smiling face. He had that smile in Budapest when I first met him, and whenever I have the luck to see him he is wearing the same expression. He is a happy man, content with his art and family. Experiencing the ups and downs of life has never stopped him creating the art that is always Hungarian.

With the years I got familiar with the winding roads of Tuxedo Park, and I no more had to ask for directions at the gate. But, then something strange happened. I came to a screeching stop. I saw a tall chimney towering above smoldering ashes. I was confused. I was looking for the house with the studio. I was looking for all those piles of beautiful prints, the walls tightly covered with world-known woodcut blocks, for the gallery of goblins presenting the adorned proud Hungarian peacocks. I was

staring at the ashes hoping that some miracle would reverse the process so I could pick up a handful of ashes and it would turn into a precious block.

The next time I met József Dómján also happened in Tuxedo Park, at a different location. After several tries, I found the new studio. And what else did I find? There he was with the same smile I had known for decades. The past left no blemish on it. It was love for everything; it was love for the future. This future was taking shape in the studio. The wood blocks, the wood chips, the simple tools, the bmshes, the palettes, ladened with choice array of colors were a testimony to this future. As the latest motif, after the fire, Dómján chose the phoenix bird for his woodcuts. He said, “I can die or live, but I chose to live, to create, to rise like the phoenix bird from the ashes once more. ”

Dómján is used to hardship. Coming from a family with 11 brothers and sisters, at the age of 14 he was earning a living as a foundry worker and engine fitter. During the depression, instead of hanging around, Dómján walked 10,000 miles in Italy, Germany and France, supporting himself by odd jobs and taking every opportunity to visit museums and the outstanding architecture of Europe. In places he did sketches and successfully sold them. He finally decided to become an artist. Back in Hungary, as a chapel janitor in the Bakony Mountains, he mustered a portfolio of drawings

and paintings and won a scholarship to the Royal Academy of Fine Arts in Budapest. He started out doing portraits and teaching but soon became interested in color woodcuts. During the war, his studio was hit by a bomb, but he bounced back and gave a new dimension to his art. A Chinese del(Continued an page 3)