DEMETER BALLA

2013., www.ballademeter.hu

Born 4 May 1931 in the countryside surrounding Szentes. He began his studies in Szentes, later continuing them in Kunszentmárton and Budapest. He obtained electrician training, and he found employment in a Budapest factory. He began to engage in photography in 1951 as an autodidact – he acquired both theoretical and practical knowledge on his own. In 1957, he obtained his certificate as a trained photographer, and in the same year, he began to work at the Photography Enterprise of the Capital (Fővárosi Fotó Vállalat)

His photographs soon got attention, and won awards (1957: VIT Award, 1964: EFIAP Award, 1973: Pravda Award, 1977: Balázs Béla Award) – and from here on, he regularly worked for picture magazines and book publishers. From 1969, he worked in the editorial offices of the Magazine Publishing House (Lapkiadó Vállalat), and retired from Ádám Magazine in 1988. Since then, he has lived exclusively from creative work.
His photographic activity demonstrates diversity in genres: portraits, photojournalism, landscapes, still lives, nudes. His literary and artistic compositions are regularly published.
Writings on his work and interviews have been published in many countries of the world.
He is member of numerous professional organisations. Due to undeserving professional attacks, in 1988 he resigned his membership in the Association of Hungarian Photographic Artists – of which he was a member since 1957.
On 18 March 1999, he founded the Demeter Award for those who selflessly act for Hungarian photographic art. The award is given annually – the first, on his 70th birthday, on 4 May 2001, was given to photo-museologist Károly Kincses.
It would be too much to list his honours: among others, he received the Lifetime Award of the Association of Hungarian Photographic Artists, the Award for Hungarian Art, and in 2004 the Kossuth Prize.
Since 2007, he has been intellectual patron of the Látszótér photographic and radio community organised on the internet; with his advice and experience, he aids the work there.
He has had more than fifty solo exhibitions in countless countries of the world; among the most important: Faces and Homes, En Route, The Anatomy of Movement, Let it Be Your Will, Bagatelles, Pictures of the Titanic.
His works are found in Hungarian public collections (Hungarian Museum of Photography, the Historical Photography Collection of the Hungarian National Museum, the National Széchényi Library, Petőfi Literary Museum, the Budapest Collection of the Szabó Ervin Library of the Capital, Körmendi-Csák 20th Century Collection of Hungarian Photography), and in private collections, as well as in galleries abroad and archives.
He is an inescapable and determining personality and author of 20th century Hungarian photography.

A cikkben szereplő művészek:

Balla Demeter