Kálmán András Balla

(1945, Pocking, Németország / D)

Kálmán András Balla is a chemist, garden and landscape architect, Pro Urbe Prize-winning lead designer and photographer. He is the founder, namesake and artistic director of the Esztergom Photographic Biennial, the Guild of Esztergom Artists, the Esztergom Art Photographic Studio and the STB-Team neoavantgarde group. He served as head of the Studio of Young Photographers from 1990 to 1996. He has exhibited actively with creative artistic groups and has also had over 160 solo exhibitions worldwide (Paris, Espoo, Rome, Frankfurt, Sofia, Plovdiv, Rambouillet, Soave, Helsinki, New York, Salzburg, Gyergyószárhegy (Lăzarea), Léva (Levice), Cambrai, Torockó (Rimetea), Cittanova, and Santa Cruz de Tenerife). His bestknown series include Photography Prohibited!; Sequences; Pub Bicycles; Concrete Butterfly; Refuge; Fragrant Garden; Balla Song; Refuge and A.Balla: Ballad. He received the Prix Air France in 1985, the Rudolf Balogh Award in 1992, the André Kertész Prize in 1997, the Grand Prize of Hungarian Photography in 2009, the St Stephen Prize in 2020, and in the Lifetime Achievement Award of the Association of Hungarian Photographers 2023. He is an honorary citizen of Esztergom and has been a full member of the Hungarian Academy of Arts since 2012.