Rudolf Bér (1924-2004) was born in Budapest, Hungary. He graduated from the Academy of Fine Arts in 1950 as a student of AURÉL BERNÁTH and GYULA RUDNAY. In 1974 he was awarded the Munkácsy Prize, Hungary's highest accolade to an artist. He was a first class large-scale painter; in the seventies he did several mural paintings in secco and inlay technique. One of his murals, a secco of 80 square meters, decorates the University of Budapest. In 1980 he won the Gold Medal and Fellowship of the Academia D'Italia.
Since the 1960's, he took part in every major national exhibition at home and repeatedly showed in Italy, France, Germany, Russia, and Switzerland.
Bér had a very strong spiritual energy that sped up the picturesque excitement of every work. Power and Vigor - these are the first words that come to mind while viewing his paintings. Showers of color pour down upon you, vibrant yellows, prismatically broken greens, sparkling reddish blues, lilac-ly resting browns. One cannot take inventory of the quantity of shades.
His paintings are a psychoanalysis of reality. Through his expressive symbols, we find freedom of spirit in his lively, rhythmical paintings. Bér was an optimist - taking into consideration that optimism is not descriptivism - but awareness of life.
He was an important complete artist, who successfully combined the unique language of knowledge, meditation, and sensitivity that touches the borders of the universal world.

Exhibitions:

1959, 1965, 1971, 1979, 1983, 1986, 1987, 1988, 1989, 1993, 1994, 2000, 2003, 2004 Budapest
1964 Veszprém
1970, 1972, 1973, 1974, 1975, 1978, 1987, 1997, 1999, 2001, 2004 Bologna
1972, 1973 Naples
1974 Luino
1974 Florence
1974, 1976, Parma
1979, 1982 Lugano, Switzerland
1985 Brussels
1991, 1999 Vienna
1991 Zürich
1997, 1999, 2001 Germany
1993, 1994, 1997, 1999, 2004 Dallas

Prizes:

1948 Szinyei Prize
1955 Gold Medal, Youth Festival
1956 Derkovits Prize
1974 Munkácsy Prize
1980 Gold Medal and Fellowship, Academia D'Italia

References:

Fitz, Péter: Contemporary Hungarian Art Lexicon. Budapest, Enciklopédia Kiadó, 1999, Volume 1, pp. 226-227.
Biográf: Who's Who In Hungary. 1990 ed., p. 59.
Seregélyi, György: Hungarian Painters and Graphic Artists Lexicon 1800-1988. Szeged 1988 ed., p. 64.
P.Sz.T.: Contemporary Hungarian Painters and Sculptors. Budapest 1985, p. 51.
Szánto, Tibor: Pictura Hungarica. 1971 ed., Vol. I.