Orosz István

István Orosz is a graphic artist, painter, poster designer and cartoon director.

After graduating from the Academy of Applied Arts under the supervision of István Balogh, he begun working as a graphic designer at the Kecskemét Theatre, and at the same tim as a cartoon director at the Pannónia Film Studio.

His style is massively influenced by his attraction to history of art and th early printing techniques; etching and engraving. His posters recall the visual world of engravings: they seem to be large scale, conceptual engraved sheets.

In addition to designing posters, Orosz was constantly making individual works, mostly etchings and engravings. These prints are typical conceptual artworks; they often refer to emblematic, historical pieces of art. Orosz prefers to use hallucination like compositions, such as absurd spaces, hidden underlying meanings, labyrinths and grotesque shapes. (His role models are Piranesi and Escher). He also applies distortions, that is, the so called anamorphoses. 

His posters are mostly absurd compositions. In 1986 he founded the DOPP group which consisted of poster artists, including Krzyzstof Ducki, Sándor Pinczehelyi and Péter Pócs. He became famous from one day to another with his emblematic poster, the Tovarishchi koniec (Comrades, it’s over!) in 1989, that symbolized the political transformation of Hungary. The poster is a powerful representation of everything that Hungary wanted to get rid of at that time: it displays the nape of a fat soviet officer. The poster was reused and cited many times, it is one of the most emblematic political poster designs in Hungarian history.                                                                                                  

Today Orosz is the member of the Hungarian Poster Association (MPT). He is still designing posters for cultural events, such as the Book Week, or the performances of the National Theatre. Besides, he is one of the best graphic artists in Hungary, creating the most thoughtful engravings and ethings. He is also a writer. Since he has xtensive knowledge in art theory and art history, the themes of his books are often focusing on artworks (such as Hans Holbein's Ambassadors) of which they tell stories and theories in a fascinating way. Orosz is also an influential teacher of graphic design at the University of Sopron.