Suzanne Balkanyi

A view of Aiguebelle in Savoie, France

1970

Suzanne BALKANYI
1922 - 2005

Original Handsigned etching.
Size of the image/plate: 25 x 32 cm
This is an artist proof ( épreuve d'artiste ) aside from the edition
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Suzanne Balkanyi was born in Budapest in 1922.
After narrowly escaping deportation to Auschwitz in 1944, she an her cousin left Hungary in 1947 to live in Paris, where she studied at the École Nationale Supérieure des Beaux-Arts.
The first known reference to Balkanyi as an artist, refers to her exhibition at the Jewish Union of students in Paris in December 1948.
For many years she worked as a zoological illustrator at the Ménagerie of the Jardins des Plantes (the Paris Zoo). At weekends she drew and painted across Paris. In her vacations she travelled extensively in Brittany, Normandy and Provence, then Italy and eventually further afield, drawing and collecting material for her etchings.
At her first one-woman show in 1966, she was recognized as "a real and substantial quality engraver" by the French artist Dunoyer de Segonzac.
She regularly exhibited her work at the Taylor Foundation in Paris.
After her retirement, she began doing more ambitious and experimental work, exhibiting regularly in Paris, London and Switzerland. During her lifetime her work was acquired by the Louvre, the Museum of Paris, the Bibliothéque Nationale, the V&A, and the British Museum and by collectors in France, Great Britain and the USA. She was elected secretary of the Pointe et Burin, Paris (the Society of Etchers).
Shortly before her death in 2005, she is recorded as saying, “No one will ever know how happy I have been.”

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