(1908, Zalaegerszeg – 1941, Budakeszi)
From 1927 to 1930 Lajos Vajda studied at the Academy of Fine Arts.
From 1930 he spent four years in Paris, where he became familiar with cubism and surrealism, as well as with films based on montage technique directed by Russian film directors Dziga Vertov and Eizenstein. Unfortunately, only photo montages remain from this period.
His family moved from Serbia to Szentendre in 1923. His iconic works were inspired by the Serbian Orthodox Church art he saw in his childhood and later in Szentendre.
From 1934 Lajos Vajda and Dezső Korniss started compiling a treasury of folk and baroque motifs and elaborated their joint “Szentendre Project”. Their main goal was to create tradition-based but contemporary avant-garde Hungarian visual art that connects the East and the West.
His powerful, monumental charcoal drawings were conceived in the menacing shadow of war in 1940.
Lajos Vajda suffered from recurrent tuberculosis, and following a spell in a labour camp, died aged just 33.
His museum opened in Szentendre in 1986.