Biography
Tihamér Gyarmathy was a Hungarian avant-garde painter. One of the main representatives of Hungarian abstraction after 1945. He studied at the Hungarian Academy of Fine Arts from 1933, where he was taught by János Vaszary. From 1937 to 1939, he studied in Italy, France and Germany. During these studies, he became acquainted with contemporary painters, including Piet Mondrian, István Beöthy, Hans Arp, André Breton, Max Bill. In 1938, he held his first solo exhibition in Paris, and his second in Zurich.
After returning home from his studies, he came into contact with representatives of the Hungarian avant-garde, Lajos Kassák and Ernő Kállai. In 1945, he was a founding member of the European School, in 1946 of the Hungarian Group of Abstract Artists and the Gallery to the 4 Worlds. In 1947 he had an exhibition in Paris and in 1948 in Budapest, but the group was disbanded that year and he was not given any more exhibition opportunities.
For more than twenty years he worked as a manual and then a technical worker to provide for his family. However, due to an illness he was eventually retired, and from then on - amidst difficult financial circumstances - he was able to live off painting again.
From the 1960s his works were exhibited first abroad and later at home. In February 1968 he was one of the participants in the avant-garde exhibition that introduced the Iparterv exhibition series at the Vásárhelyi Pál Kollégium.
