Anyone paying homage to Zoltán Huszárik, wishing to interpret or touch upon his oeuvre, must remember his diversity, his talent as a visual artist and writer, which found its ultimate expression in his films. Also remembered must be his elusively changing Protean personality, which his colleague and friend, filmmaker János Tóth described thus: “It was elevating that he was never monotonous as he had such a wealth of variations inherent in him.” As a young man with diverse talent, he had to make a choice after graduating from secondary school: he would have equally been accepted to the Academy of Fine Arts as the department of film directing, where he actually enrolled. When trying to understand his career, the best starting point is his drawings, and if we want to understand his film art through his personality, his graphic art serves as the best proof for his genius. “His talent in the fine arts was manifest early on,” said painter Mihály Schéner at the 1986 Huszárik memorial exhibition in the Petőfi Literary Museum, “and I, once his teacher at the secondary school, was able to follow the unfolding of the artistic ambitions of the then sixteen-year-old sensitive and exceptionally talented young man and help him along the way.” In light of this, it was natural that the Gödöllő exhibition commemorating the first anniversary of Huszárik’s death featured his graphic art. The staff members of the Petőfi Literary Museum had to select the material from among eight hundred or so drawings, this abundance of works suggesting that drawing had been a continuous pursuit of his. And indeed, Huszárik recorded his visual ideas whenever he could find a suitable medium, a scrap of paper or a pencil stump, and whenever he got hold of fine Italian art paper, on which he drew lines with his gold Parker pen. Drawing thus became an occasional means of recreation, a game, a friendly gesture for him, but also a tool in preparing for his film projects – making costume designs and an adventure while looking for the right set – and a way of making money in hard times through book illustrations, cover designs and pieces for periodicals.
