Description

The setting is Central Park in New York City, at the romantic Bow Bridge.

Dad created this beautiful painting during a tumultuous time for our family, but I sometimes wonder how such beauty came from chaos.

In 1961, Dad was 39 years old, and our family was starting to adjust to America.

After escaping Communism in Hungary in 1956, we emigrated, leaving everything and everyone behind in our search for freedom.  Five years later, around the time of this painting, we became proud American citizens.

Between 1960 and 1961, we moved to New York City from New Jersey. We lived on the 4th floor of a small railroad-style apartment in Manhattan's Spanish Harlem, three miles from Central Park.

Dad began to explore the streets and parks of New York, working with oil paints. However, his art medium would soon change because we didn’t have room for canvases and smelly paints in our tiny apartment. Consequently, oil paintings are the smallest part of Dad's American art collection.

Going Back
In 2005, we searched for and found the same park bench where Dad sat to create this piece in 1961. It was just as beautiful and peaceful 44 years later, and this time I was with him.

As I sat with my father, I closed my eyes and reimagined how, on a perfect summer day in '61, Dad was in this exact spot, hidden in the shade of an old oak tree, with his easel, paints, and brushes in hand.

Lovers and rowers passed before him on The Big Lake; their distant chatter filled the air. I can hear gentle splashes and hollow wooden knocks of paddles hitting the edges of passing rowboats.

Dad was more confident than in years. His family was safe, and their lives had stabilized.

We were poor, but we were proud - our American journey realized.

It was a beautiful moment reflected in A Passage. ❤️

Through My Father's Eyes