PÉTER NÁDAS

In his photographic series Story of Light (1999–2003) and its recent continuation New Lights, Péter Nádas investigates the aesthetic and conceptual boundaries of color photography. Central to these works is light itself—captured not as brightness in its fullness, but as a subtle phenomenon appearing in space and atmosphere. Rather than aiming for luminous spectacle, Nádas focuses on the presence of light within darkness: a beam that briefly reveals detail, form, and texture.

“If God exists, you might find him in the smallest amount of light and in a compositional principle reduced to its barest essentials.” — Péter Nádas

Péter Nádas, born in Budapest in 1942, is both a writer and a photographer. After completing formal training in photography, he worked as a photojournalist for various publications. He later turned to literature and is now regarded as one of the major figures in contemporary European writing. His novels—including A Book of Memories (1986) and Parallel Stories (2005)—have earned international acclaim. 
Nádas’s photographic work has been shown in numerous exhibitions, among them at the Mai Manó House (Budapest, 2000 and 2003), the Museum of Photography in The Hague (2004), the Martin-Gropius-Bau in Berlin (2005), Kunsthaus Zug (2012 and 2018), and the Collegium Hungaricum in Vienna (2022). 
His literary work has been recognized with several important awards, including the Austrian State Prize for European Literature (1991), the Kossuth Prize (1992), the Leipzig Book Prize for European Understanding (1995), the Franz Kafka Prize (2003), and the Würth Prize for European Literature (2014).

Since 2006, Péter Nádas has been a member of the Berlin Academy of Arts, which has also housed the Péter Nádas Archive since 2018. In 2025, he was elected to the Order Pour le Mérite. Péter Nádas lives in Gombosszeg, Hungary.

“The photographic eye that animates his prose reveals Péter Nádas as a rare dual talent.” — Neue Zürcher Zeitung