Nicholas Hornyansky

Nicholas Hornyansky was born, 1896, in Budapest, Hungary. At the age of 12 he was working in his father's printing office as a colour mixer... He became an exhibitor in a number of leading Canadian and American art societies, i.e. exhibiting in the Royal Canadian Academy and Ontario Society of Artists' annual shows. He won the international award of '50 color prints of the year' (American Federation of Artists), in 1932 and 1933, and became a member of the American Color Print Society (Phila.). His participation in national and international exhibitions, however, created more recognition for him in the United States. His print 'Closing Time' was the first Canadian print to enter the Permanent National Collection of Prints, of the Library of Congress, Washington. In 1940 he won 'Print of the Year' of the Society of Canadian Painters-Etchers & Engravers, and was elected a member of the OSA. He was devoted to the development and furthering of the CPE, the Canadian Society of Painters-Etchers & Engravers, a group he was both member and president of and for which, since 1939, he was responsible for initiating and organising of annual tours of exhibition prints...

His work is represented in the following collections: National Gallery of Canada, Royal Ontario Museum (print coll.) National Print Coll. (Library of Congress, USA), New Mexico Museum (Sante Fe), Pennsylvania Museum of Art (Phila.), Musée Plantain (Antwerp), Hart House (Univ. of Toronto), The John Ross Robertson Coll. (Toronto Pub. Lib.) He was Life Fellow, International Institute of Arts and Letters.

Vicki Michaels
Assistant Curator
Exhibition Co-ordinator
From the Hornyansky exhibition catalogue, Oakville Centennial Gallery, October 1976