After its debut at the Bodó Gallery and Auction House, the unique world of László Bornemisza arrives in Sopron: the large-scale exhibition Memories of Fleeting Time will be open to visitors from May 6 to 8 as part of SopronFest. Featuring a selection of rarely seen works, the show offers a glimpse into an oeuvre that stands as one of the forgotten treasures of the post-regime-change era—now awaiting rediscovery.

László Bornemisza (1910–1995) created paintings that are both whimsical and unsettling. His canvases are populated by golden, sky-reaching buildings, grotesque figures, pigtailed girls, nuns, and brothel dwellers—presented through the innocent yet piercing gaze of a child. As Bornemisza himself put it: “To show the world through the naive eyes of a child, and in doing so, reveal its grotesque elements.” A recurring figure in this perspective is Lumikki, the wide-eyed, ever-curious little girl whom Hungarian writer Ervin Lázár once called a theatrical master of ceremonies—appearing as a kind of fairytale guide throughout Bornemisza’s work.

His paintings pulse with the irreconcilable duality of the postwar decades: the rebirth of European culture weighed down by collective guilt, a cheerful grotesquery tinged with irony and social critique. It is no coincidence that critics have compared his art to that of Arnold Gross, István Pekáry, and even James Ensor or Ferenc Jánossy. Carnival-like crowds, archaic symbols, and the surreal visions of the 1970s merge in his work—often within a cinematic atmosphere evocative of Bergman, Fellini, or Fassbinder.

The exhibition is curated by Dr. Lilla Szabó, with co-curator Zsófia Nóra Nagy. Beyond carefully selecting the works, they have designed the concept of the show to transport visitors into a fairytale city beyond time—a world that is at once nostalgic and deeply disquieting.