Prinner studied painting under Gyula Rudnay and János Vaszary at the Academy of Fine Arts from 1920 to 1924, and worked in the summers at the Nagybánya artists colony. But she became best known for her sculptures.
In 1927 she moved to Paris, where she started dressing as a man. She became friends with Picasso, who is said to have addressed her as Monsieur Madame, Antonin Artaud, who wrote recommendations for Prinner's books, and the photographer Robert Capa, who developed some of his famous images of the Spanish Civil War in Prinner's bathroom.
Prinner joined the renowned Atelier 17 graphics workshop, where she developed a special cutting method which she called paper engraving. Later she employed her skills to make illustrations for the Egyptian Book of the Dead.
In 1950 she moved to Vallauris where she made ceramics for the Atelier Tapis-Vert.
Prinner had several exhibitions in France, and in Hungary, she showed at Budapest's Tamás Galéria in 1938 and at the Műcsarnok in the 1970s, in an exhibition of Hungarian artists working in France. Still, Prinner's work remains virtually unknown to the Hungarian public.
The Ernst Museum's exhibition will show 250 of Prinner's works on loan from collections in France. Hungarian collectors have lent an additional ten works.
The exhibition will run until May 23.
