ALL CONTENT COPYRIGHT: CALIFORNIA EUROPEAN CULTURAL INSTITUTE / MEMORY PROJECT

Nóra Kiss Szabó, 1956er
(March 29, 1939 - September 8, 2023)

Nóra Kiss was born in Budapest in 1939 where her family lived on Móricz Zsigmond körtér. A talented artist in her youth, she attended the Gymnasium of Fine and Applied Arts in Budapest until the Hungarian Revolution of 1956. She witnessed the Revolution, and following its defeat, she escaped to Austria with her family. The Kiss family immigrated to the U.S. and settled in Maryland. In 1959 she married Károly Szabó, a fellow 1956 refugee. In 1963 her son, Ákos, was born. She continued her studies in art first at Syracuse University and later in California.

In 1971, the Szabó family moved to Vienna, Austria, where Károly became a technical advisor to the United Nations and Nora continued her work as an abstract artist. She accompanied Károly on many trips to various parts of the world, including South America, the Far East and Africa, which inspired her artwork.

In the past 40 years she has had many solo and group exhibits. Her paintings can be found in private and public collections in Austria, Germany, Italy, Hungary and the United States. The themes that run through most of her artwork are the changing of time, the” winding and unwinding liquid thread” that runs through human history and the historical power of changes that rhythmically occur.

Sadly, Nóra passed away in 2022.

Interview was conducted by Andrea Lauer Rice in Budapest in the summer 2016.

Interviews with her sister, Edith Kish Lauer, and Mother, Eva Horváth Kiss, are also included in this archive. Photographs included in the gallery section were taken in 1956 by her husband, Károly Szabó.