Inauguration ceremony for new mural in honour of Gabor Szilasi

Take part in an inauguration ceremony to celebrate the new mural on the MK Annex in honour of Gabor Szilasi, professor emeritus in the Department of Studio Arts.

The public artwork, located on the northwest corner of De Maisonneuve Boulevard and Mackay Street, was painted by Rafael Sottolichio and produced by MU, a charitable organization that aims to beautify Montreal by creating perennial murals rooted in the community. The project is part of the City of Montreal's Programme d’art mural.

The mural aims to highlight Szilasi’s major contribution to Quebec photography, as well as Montreal’s cultural heritage, and is the 31st entry in MU’s Tribute to Montreal’s Great Artists series. Launched in 2010, the collection recognizes how a variety of Montreal artists from different disciplines have greatly influenced the city’s cultural scene locally, nationally and internationally.

About Gabor Szilasi

A major figure in photography in Canada, Gabor Szilasi helped encourage and inspire several generations of artists over the course of his career. He began teaching photography in 1971, first as a teacher at the Collège du Vieux Montréal, and then as a professor at Concordia from 1980 until his retirement in 1995. Szilasi is professor emeritus in Concordia’s Department of Studio Arts.

Heavily influenced by his experiences in his native Budapest and subsequent flight to Canada in 1957, after Hungary's revolution, Szilasi’s expansive oeuvre is preoccupied with social documentary. His humanistic chronicle of landscape, cityscape and everyday life earned him the Governor General’s Award for Visual and Media Arts in 2010, the Prix Paul-Émile-Borduas in 2009 and a Fine Arts Award of Distinction from Concordia in 2013.

Each year, the Faculty of Fine Arts awards a graduating student with the Gabor Szilasi Prize in Studio Arts.