Artist. He was one of Hungary’s leading painters between World Wars I and II. Born in Budapest, he studied at the College of Fine Arts from 1912 to 1914, and served in the Hungarian Army on the Eastern Front during World War I. From 1928 to 1931 he lived in Rome, Italy on a scholarship from the Hungarian Academy. He gained renown for depicting moments from everyday life with bold, pure colors and solid forms, and was particularly skilled with crowd scenes and his canvases of marketplaces and carnivals. He was also noted for his religious subjects, in which he drew parallels between his own style and that of 16th Century icon painting (examples of the latter are his mural “The Last Judgement” (1933) at the Jaszszentadras Parish Church, and the frescoes he completed in 1938 for the Varosmajor Church in Budapest).  He had major exhibitions of his paintings in London, England (1934), New York City, New York and Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania (1935), and Chicago, Illinois (1936). In 1940 he won the Grand Prize at the “Venice Biennale” contemporary art exhibition in Venice, Italy. Some of his religious murals were destroyed by Hungary’s Communist government after World War II. Today Aba-Novak’s work can be seen in major museums throughout the world, including the Museum of Modern Art in New York City. (bio by: Bobb Edwards)