Szalai, László (1948 - )

Ceramic artist. He was born in Szeged in 1948. In 1977, he graduated in ceramics from the Hungarian Academy of Applied Arts (today: Moholy-Nagy University of Art and Design), where he was awarded the Géza Gorka Prize. He studied under master ceramist Árpád Csekovszky. From 1977 to 1979, he taught at the Hungarian Academy of Applied Arts, and from 1979 to 1981, he was the workshop leader of the International Ceramics Studio in Kecskemét. From 1986 until his retirement, he was a teacher at the Secondary School of the Visual Arts in Budapest. In his abstract, cast porcelain and cordierite sculptures, he creates tension through the co-presence of regular and irregular, intact and fractured forms and surfaces. His most important professional distinctions include awards at the National Ceramics Biennial, Pécs, Hungary (1982, 1998) and the International Ceramics Competition, Faenza, Italy (1984). He has also won the Noémi Ferenczy Prize (1997); the István Gádor Prize (2008); and the special jury prize at the Day of Hungarian Culture (2018). His works can be found in several public collections in Hungary and abroad.