István Sándorfi

István Sándorfi (In France Étienne Sandorfi; 12 June 1948 – 26 December 2007) was a Hungarian hyperrealist painter.

Istvan (known as Etienne) Sandorfi was born in Budapest in 1948. His father was director of the American company IBM in Hungary. Because of this association he served five years in prisons under the Communist leadership and his family was deported to an isolated Hungarian village. At the time of the 1956 uprising the Sandorfi family fled the country and became expatriates, first in Germany, then in France. Greatly affected by the violence of the revolution and by the aberration of political systems in general, Istvan took refuge in drawing and then, at the age of 12, in oil painting.

Art became his overriding passion to the detriment of his schooling. At the age of 17, while still in secondary school, Sandorfi had his first individual exhibition at a small gallery in Paris. After his second exhibition, in 1966, he gave up drawing to devote himself exclusively to painting.