Janos Enyedi

ENYEDI JANOS ENYEDI (Age 63) An internationally known artist whose paintings, sculpture and drawings celebrated his fascination with industrial landscapes and ports in the United States and Europe, died on October 6, 2011, in St. Petersburg, Florida, of complications following a heart attack. After living for more than 30 years [1971- May 2011] in the Washington area, Enyedi and Diana K. Enyedi, his wife, moved their Furnace Road Studio in May to St. Petersburg's Dome Industrial District, a nascent artists' enclave in a former warehouse district. In an article published on September 25, the St. Petersburg Times described Enyedi as "vital to the burgeoning enclave." In the Washington area, Enyedi was also a vital force, known for his outgoing personality, unflagging energy, technical mastery and remarkable eye for finding art in industrial sites. In addition to creating art, Enyedi was an energetic presence on the Washington art scene. He was a co-founder of Washington Area Lawyers for the Arts, which for more than 25 years has provided need-based legal assistance on art-related matters. Earlier this year, the organization inaugurated an annual prize in his honor, the "Janos Enyedi Artist of the Year Award." Steven A. Mansbach, professor of 20th century art at the University of Maryland wrote that Enyedi's sculpture recaptures and reinvigorates the heroic traditions of American modernism. "His keen sensitivity to the nation's twentieth-century industrial spirit serves as the intellectual platform for his aesthetic essays in two and three dimensions," Mansbach wrote. "Enyedi's painting and drawing, and especially his sculpture, take seriously America's industrial past, less by documenting its former grandeur than by enabling its vestiges to take possession of our imagination." Writing in the Philadelphia Inquirer, art critic Victoria Donahoe compared Enyedi's industry-inspired work to that of 20th century painter/photographer Charles Sheeler, adding that Enyedi "aims to take a further step, tapping into that aspect of the American character that responds affirmatively to change, to challenge, to some sort of new frontier, and insists on doing so in contemporary terms." Jonathan George "Janos" Enyedi, was born December 16, 1947, in Blue Island, IL, the son of second- generation Hungarian immigrants. His father, George, was a Protestant minister and a United States Navy chaplain. His mother Irene, was a Social Worker for the State of Illinois. Growing up on Chicago's South Side, Enyedi was fascinated by the city's steel mills, assembly plants, and factories. Those memories, and impressions gathered during car trips through Rust Belt regions of the Midwest and East Coast, became his abiding inspiration. Enyedi depicted scenes and eye-stopping details-real and imagined-he gleaned from ports, coal yards and steel mills. He was a pioneer in creating weighty, "fool the eye" sculptural assemblages which appeared to be made of heavy steel but were actually painted poster board. In recent years, Enyedi explored photography-based digital printmaking of subjects such as the Chernobyl nuclear plant in the Ukraine and ports on the East Coast and Great Lakes. His sculptures, assemblages, drawings, and photographs are in the collections of: the Chrysler Museum of Art, Norfolk, VA; the Butler Institute of American Art, Youngstown, OH; and the Morris Museum of Art, Augusta, GA. His artwork was featured in the United States State Department's "Art in the Embassies," program for which he served as Ad Hoc Cultural Representative to the Ukraine in 2007. His works were also exhibited in U.S. embassies in Cambodia, Bolivia, France and Azerbejdzan. Over the course of his career, Enyedi's art was featured in scores of solo, two-person and group exhibitions in museums, public spaces and galleries in Washington, D.C, New York City, Pittsburgh, Cleveland, Denver, Dallas, Norfolk, Virginia Beach, Richmond, Budapest, Cologne, Berlin and South Korea. Enyedi's works are included in dozens of corporate and private collections in the United States and Europe. He is represented in Washington D.C. by the Kathleen Ewing Gallery. Other galleries currently representing Mr. Enyedi include: Page Bond Gallery, Richmond, VA, Concept Art Gallery, Pittsburgh, PA; and The Bonfoey Company, Cleveland, OH. At Furnace Road Studio, their home and workspace in the sylvan Washington exurb of Mason Neck, VA, Janos and Diana Enyedi were known for sharing fine food and drink-including Bull's Blood wine from northern Hungary's Eger region-and spirited conversation at gatherings of artists, critics, curators, museum directors, collectors and neighbors and friends. Janos Enyedi studied at Southern Illinois University in Carbondale, IL, and earned his Bachelor of Fine Arts in 1975 from the Corcoran School of Art in Washington D.C. He attended graduate school at Ohio University in Athens, OH. Mr. Enyedi served in the U.S. Navy from 1970-1976. Survivors include his wife of 38 years, Diana Enyedi of St. Petersburg; brother Carlton Enyedi of Durham, NC; sister Roberta Ludtke of Stockbridge, MI; and several nieces, nephews, and grand-nieces and grand-nephews. Memorial services are being planned for St. Petersburg, FL, and later in the Washington D.C. area.