Imre Zsido’s Biography
 

Victoria, Australia
 

Imre Zsido was born in Budapest, Hungary in 1950. After completing Electronics Technical School in 1968, he applied to the Hungarian National Art School to study art. Unfortunately, due to his family's conflict with the communist state, he was not accepted into the school and any success seemed limited to him. After completing two years of military service, he married his wife Livia in 1972. It was that year that they decided they would need to leave Hungary in order to pursue becoming a professional artist.

In 1973 they escaped communist Hungary to end up in an Italian Refugee Camp in the city of Latina, Southern Italy. Here they spent three months before being accepted to (West) Germany where they lived with relatives in Duisburg (northern Germany). Imre worked as an electrician for a year and half until their son Thomas was born. In 1975 they immigrated to Melbourne, Australia. In 1979, they had a daughter, Sylvia, and have resided in Australia since.

Imre is a member of the Victorian Artist’s Society and one his first award at the Dandenong Festival of Music and Art for Youth in 1976. He has since received numerous awards and commendations throughout Australia including receiving a personal letter from Sir William Dargie (Australia's leading artist and art teacher). Throughout the years he has produced hundreds of drawings and has been commissioned to do numerous private pieces.

"In His Own Words"

My interest in art started at very early age. I remember being one of the best art students in my school, and often my teacher asked me to draw and paint banners, cards, etc… for class and school functions. At this time I started to study the life and works of the Renaissance Artists like Leonardo and Michelangelo, but the biggest influence on me was Salvador Dali and other Surrealist Artists. With their inspiration, not one day passed where I had not worked to formulate my own style. Much later, in the Italian and German Refugee Camps, I drew many ink sketches and furthered my desire to work more with black and white. Here I further improved my drawing skills and explored various styles of artwork.

I was always interested in putting stories into my pictures, and decided to start drawing bigger and more complicated drawings to accommodate the story telling. In Australia, I worked during the day in the electronics trade, but after hours I worked into the morning hours improving my skills. At this time I produced more black and white pieces than watercolour or oil paintings. Some of my larger, poster size works can take 200-300 hours to complete and are very detailed. I love to tell a story.  I think my style has developed to fit into both Fantasy and Surrealistic genres.

In 1978 I completed an eight month Art History course at the Ringwood Education Centre in Melbourne and visited practical printmaker workshops at the Caulfield Institute of Technology. Though I had longed to study art for many years prior to this, I felt that schooling did not help improve my skills as much as my personal practice.  For this reason I decided to stop any further schooling.  I am very proud to be completely self-taught and educated.