All of us are sum total of myriad of experiences. In my case one might add the words, “and lack of experiences”, because other than the Famous Artist Commercial Art correspondence course, I have no formal art training. In fact, my education is limited to high school, and an eighteen months cartographic training in Budapest, Hungary. No degrees, no exhibits and awards, only over fifty years of diligent, hard work combined with never ending willingness to learn more. Until 1993 I used brushes, airbrushes, and acrylics; since then all my work - map or other art - is produced on a Power Macintosh, utilizing a wide variety of software - Adobe Photoshop being the most frequently used one. Looking at map art, my inspiration comes from a simple, yet overbearing need to satisfy my own standards before satisfying my clients. For photography. my most recent acquisition is a Nikon D50, and it comes with me every place I go so that I can capture images that are beautiful, unusual, possibly funny, and have something to say. And - before I make my final selection of all the pictures taken - the most important question I ask myself is, “Would I want to have that picture hanging on my wall?”.

Born in 1937 in Budapest, Hungary, and raised during the difficult pre- and post-World War II era, the bright spots in my life were gymnastics, drawing, and photography. Gymnastics - through achieving national championship level - gave me a degree of confidence and self-worth; through the guidance and encouragement of my middle school art teacher, I began drawing with pencil and charcoal, and even placed third in a citywide school art competition; and - through a gift of an old camera, received around the age of ten - I discovered the pleasure of capturing images of the world around us. My latent talent for art finally had a chance to evolve many years later, when - while working as a cartographer at the National Geographic Society, in Washington, D.C. - I signed up for the Famous Artist Commercial Art correspondence course. The benefits of this training were twofold: professional advancement, and the discovery of great joy in drawing and painting portraits. At age seventy I can safely say that gymnastics is but a faint image in my past (no more somersaults and handstands), but when it comes to art - which certainly includes cartographic art (see www.tothgraphix.com) - and photography, there is still a bright and wide open vista open before me. As in the last sixty years, I continue looking at my surroundings through my camera, and keep clicking away to preserve special sights, and memorable moments of my life. These photographic images, in turn, may become the foundation and inspiration for new art to be added to this Gallery.