… In some of his beautiful images a veil of fog and light is woven, turning reality into a melodic chimera", a critic writing for Est praised the young painter.

Following the German occupation, he was forced to return to Budapest (1943) where his unique surrealistic style fully matured (Sacred and Profane Love, 1947; Musée des Beaux-Arts de Dijon).

A few years later he won the Copley-Prize (1964) from a jury composed of Hans Arp, Roberto Matta, Max Ernst, Man Ray, Roland Penrose, Sir Herbert Read and Marcel Duchamp.

From the start of the 1960s, Rozsda's work underwent another change: the tensions and harmonies of architectonic structures and swirling colors created a richly detailed microcosm.

In his effort "to control time" and dissolve reality in his imagination he continued to rely on Surrealism, although his means of expression became increasingly characterized by lyrical abstraction.

The last exhibition he attended in person was held in Várfok Gallery and opened by the writer Péter Esterházy (1999): Just like nature itself, these pictures are difficult to disclose.

Full of energy, subtle tensions, a healthy dose of pride and a keen appetite for experimentation … Clearly, he had excellent schooling: under the tutelage of Aba-Novák he acquired professional skills of the highest order.

[5] With his style far ahead of academic trends yet this side of the avant-garde, apparently everything was in place for him to join one of the artistic currents popular at the time in Hungary.

That's when he encountered the most important artistic influence of his life that left a radical impact on his thinking and work.This is how Rozsda recalled this shift: "By pure coincidence, just before my trip to Paris I met two painters, a couple: Imre Ámos and Margit Anna.

This process is well illustrated by his work from that time where figurative representation was gradually replaced by abstraction: Two persons alone (1939), Emperor on the throne (1939–40), Apple bed (1942), A glass of water watches over the birth of a caterpillar (1943), The King of truth (1942).

Surely, personal tragedies and the experienced horrors hardened his resolve to discover worlds not dominated by historical forces and the laws of nature, but instead by the powers of imagination.

Not long ago, involving an exhibition in ‘Alkotás Művészház’, we gave a cursory overview of abstraction, i.e., an art form devoid of any sense of reality and the pastime of a bygone generation", one of them wrote.

In the euphoria following liberation and the hope of a new start after the war they were free to give public lectures, create art and put on regular shows.

The philosopher, Béla Hamvas may have referred to these visions when he pointed out: "Among our contemporary and young surrealist painters, Endre Rozsda's work offers the richest realization of this artistic movement.

(...) To date, two hot spots have emerged in his works: one is an erotic dream fantasy and the other, closely related focal point is something that can only be described vaguely with a universal metaphor.

These elegant and sensitive drawings conjure the world of concert halls, bathhouses, courtrooms, farm cooperatives and hospitals, while they also express revulsion against the oppressive regime.

One month before the outbreak of the Revolution, on September 13, 1956 he signed a joint petition with five other artists: "There are a few of us in Hungary who had never given up our conviction that the art of the 20th century has a significant cultural mission.

"[8] The exhibition earned the artist considerable recognition and in the images vibrating with dizzying details one of the critics celebrated that through them surrealism again demonstrates its most strident and powerful side.

I remember his exact words, as the term 'marvelous' had a very special meaning for André.”[9] Thanks to this connection, one of Rozsda's works (Windows) was shown at the Galleria Schwarz in Milan in an international surrealist exhibition curated by André Breton in 1961.

His second show at the Furstenberg Gallery (1963) displayed the results of this exploratory work, although subsequently his painting took another turn and developed further in the direction of lyrical abstraction.

Rozsda's intention may have been to rearrange a shattered world into a system – built on the tensions and harmonies of color and form – where the rules of the conventional three-dimensional space no longer apply and where, as a result, the horizon of time may be represented as well.

To reach that end, he developed a method where first he breaks the world into an infinite variety of – some figurative, some abstract – component parts, then allows each viewer to use these as building blocks and construct a new totality along his/her vision, free association and imagination.

Surrealism offered Rozsda the tool to give pictorial representation to his personal memories and fantasy, yet he aimed for something more: he wished to make the viewer his collaborator whose gaze helps to re-create an atomized and deconstructed world.

The subjective elements arising from personal memory are superseded by imperatives of an initiatory and metaphysical nature", Françoise Gilot wrote in her analysis, adding that these increasingly closed compositions require time and patience on the part of the viewer to reveal their profound richness.

[6] Endre Rozsda had the following to say in this context: “To those who look at my work, I ask you to approach it with the kind of attention and contemplation I gave new things as a child, to take the time to find your way into the paintings I offer you and to wander about in them.

Throughout his career, Rozsda made figurative and abstract drawings and often a unique combination of the two, although this variability in subject matter and technique does not contradict the realization that this part of his oeuvres is inspired by the same surrealist ambition aimed at the liberation of the imagination and the representation of the hidden occupants of the mind.

This is true even when he created with ease subtle drawings composed in a playful rhythm of simple forms and with sensual references, or when he brought to life ominously swirling fantasies populated by imaginary beings with extraordinary precision.

(...) In most cases, his sense of humor works in the world of imagination; he likes to create shocking human forms: a trumpet-mouthed figure whose chest and thighs are covered with female breasts.

In this surprisingly complex photograph taken in 1927 spatial depth disappears, distinct shapes appear on a single plane, including young Rozsda's portrait, captured through reflections.

As a young man, he made a large number of documentary photographs, and later he was primarily preoccupied with such mundane objects as wilting flowers filtered through unusual lighting or superimposed images.