Drawing from History

My interest in drawing and history goes back to my childhood in Hungary when I first held a pencil and discovered my grandfather’s library. Grandfather had an extensive library with several nineteenth-century books about Hungarian and European history that were illustrated with magnificent prints and engravings.

Some described the legendary eleventh-century King Laszlo who fought against the invading Turkic heathen tribes known as the Cumanians or Kuns, and then against the Cumanians again, Petchenegs and Russians beyond Hungary’s frontiers. After his death he became a saint and an object of veneration to his embattled people. There is a legend that on Hungary’s darkest days the almost seven-foot tall saint-king would reappear in the midst of battles to terrorise the enemy.