Goodbye Lennon: The Life of A Hungarian Art Star

Sam Havadtoy

The latest great somewhat hi-brow Netflix series is the just-released The Andy Warhol Diaries. And while we haven’t made if far enough in to clock any Hungarian fingerprints, we do know enough about that scene to recall that there was a Hungarian prominently situated in the mix, in the form of gallerist and artist Sam Havadtoy.

Born to Hungarians in London in 1952, his family made the daring choice of returning to Hungarian soil a few years later. It wouldn’t be until 1971 that Havadtoy was able to depart the Bloc for London, via Yugoslavia. He eventually emigrated to the States, where he would found the influential Sam Havadtoy Gallery. It was there that he mixed with the likes of Warhol and Keith Haring, with John Lennon and his wife coming in to buy a pair of chairs. In time he would engage with Yoko Ono in a relationship that would last 20 years, and bring the singer/artist to Budapest on many extended occasions.

Sam Havadtoy, 18

Of his relationship with Ono, Havardoy told the New York Times, “Being with Yoko was like going through an extensive university course of life. And I was the only student. I may have taken too long. Maybe I failed at many courses, but finally I graduated and came into my own. Like going to university, it’s a period that you would never replace with anything else, but there’s no point in going back to it, it’s done.”

Of Havadtoy, Yoko Ono said, “An artist is born. I am touched by the magnificence of his work. He has dipped into the old Hungarian spirit and culture and created a work that is very now. It is Hungarian, very Sam Havadtoy and it’s beautiful.”

As an artist in his own right, Havadtoy contributed to some late works of Keith Haring, and showed his own work worldwide, including at Budapest’s Hungarian National Theatre and the Ludwig Museum. His work is playful and draws heavily on Disney iconography and political references, prefiguring Jeffrey Koons. After returning to Hungary to live, Havadtoy opened the gallery Gallery 56, and was able to introduce prominent international artists like Cindy Sherman, Robert Mapplethorpe, and Kiki Smith to a Budapest audience.

Havadtoy now splits his time between Hungary, where he has a studio in the artist enclave of Szentendre, and Liguria, Italy.

Lace duck by Sam Havadtoy

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