Péter Korniss

• Heaven's Bridegroom (1975) • Passing Times (1979) • The Land of Red Cloud (1982) • The Land of Ancient Caravan Roads (1985) • Amsterdam (1987) • The Guest Worker (1988) • Het International Danstheater (1991) • Hungary – in the Heart of Europe (1996) • From Clear Mountain Springs – with Ferenc Novák (1997) • Inventory. Transylvanian Pictures (1998) • Balaton (2000) • Jászság – Land and People (2001) • Bright and Splendid Hungary (2004) • Whose People are you? (2006) • Nativity Play (2006) • Attachment 1967–2008 (2008) • Clear voices. Music by János Bródy, photographs by Peter Korniss, text by Zoltán Zubornyák (2010) • „Giving You Golden-Rod” – with Zoltán Kallós (2011) • Gypsies in a Row - Twenty-four Hungarians of Today - with Pál Závada (2011) • Continued, Várfok Gallery (2012) • From Mezőség to Moldva. The Journey of Zoltán Kallós; written by Bálint Ablonczy, photographs by Péter Korniss (2013) • The World of Zoltán Kallós; written by Bálint Ablonczy, photographs by Péter Korniss (2016) • Continuing Memories (2017) • Photographs 1959–2017 (2020) • The Long Road – Sic 1967–2022 (2023)

Documentary photography accounts for the most significant part of his œuvre: documenting events realistically. He likes to return to the same location again and again. His works are characterised by their monochrome nature. Until 2010 he exhibited only black and white images. His colour photographs were published in magazines and books. His work as a photojournalist started with photographing ballet companies and folk dance ensembles, and later continued with alternative theatre performances of the 25th Theatre. In 1961, he met choreographer Ferenc Novák, who first took him to a Transylvanian dance event (táncház) in 1967. It was then that he began to work with traditional peasant culture, and the disappearing peasant world of Transylvania, Moldavia and Hungary became the main motif of his work. He became known for his reportage from these regions, returning several times to the same villages. In the Kádár-era, these works were considered a speciality in Hungary. In 1978 he began to study the lives of commuter workers travelling from the countryside to Budapest and working in the capital. He met András Skarbit from Tiszaeszlár, who commuted to Budapest and worked there as a road construction worker, and followed him for a decade, until Skarbit's retirement. Korniss published his photographs from this period in the album The Guest Worker in 1988. In the 1990s, Korniss began to work in posed photography, which he had not done before, reviving poses and settings that had long disappeared. His pictures from this period show a combination of tradition and modernity. In 1999, he became the first photographer to be awarded the Kossuth Prize, Hungary's highest art award. In 2008, he published an album titled Attachment, which summarises his 40-year career as a photographer. In 2012, he had an exhibition titled Continuation at Várfok Gallery, and since then the gallery has been representing him in the art world. In 2017, the Hungarian National Gallery in Budapest and Várfok Gallery organised an extensive exhibition of his works, which was followed by exhibitions abroad at venues such as the Museo di Roma in Trastevere, the Museum of Fine Arts in Cluj-Napoca, the National Museum of Art of Romania in Bucharest. In 2020, Peter Korniss donated his archive encompassing his entire œuvre, to the Museum of Fine Arts in Budapest. The collection, under the name of Péter Korniss Archive, is kept in the Central European Research Institute for Art History, an affiliate of the museum. In 2023, Korniss organized an exhibition titled The Long Road – Sic 1967-2022 at Várfok Gallery, along which a photo album with the same title was published by Bookart Publishing House.

• Béla Balázs Award (1975) • Grand Prize of the UN Competition (1976) • Artist of Merit of Hungary (1983) • National Confederation of Hungarian Trade Unions Prize (1990) • Csaba von Ferenczy Prize (1994) • "Pro Hungarian Art" Prize (1995) • Award for Budapest (1998) • Berzsenyi Prize (1998) • Kossuth Prize (1999) • Joseph Pulitzer Memorial Prize (2004) • My Homeland Prize (2005) • Hungarian Heritage Award (2010) • Kölcsey Memorial Medal (2013) • Artist of the Nation of Hungary](2014) • Czech Press Photo Lifetime Achievement Award (2014) • Prima Primissima Prize (2018) • Kriterion Wreath (2020) • Lifetime Achievement Award of the Hungarian Academy of Arts (2022) • Honorary Citizen of Budapest (2024)