Olga Dormandi

Olga Dormandi (1900–1971) was a Hungarian painter and children’s book illustrator whose career spanned six decades. She worked with diverse mediums such as watercolor, oil paint, pastels, lithographs, and ceramics. Born in Szeged to Lajos and Vilma Székely, her parents divorced in 1904, leading to her adoption by her mother’s second husband, Frigyes Kovács. In 1924, she married Ladislas Dormandi, a writer and editor, and had a daughter, Judith, in 1925.

Dormandi began drawing as a child, studying at Mme Ernestine Lovagh's School and under Róbert Berény. Her first exhibition was at Budapest’s Ernst Museum in 1922. Many family members were psychoanalysts, including her mother, sister, daughter, and brother-in-law Michael Balint. She painted portraits of these relatives and other analysts, attending conferences like those in Salzburg and Vienna.

In 1938, she moved to Paris with her family due to the Anschluss, fleeing Nazi persecution as they were Jewish. During WWII, they hid in France while Michael Balint’s family relocated to England. Post-war, Dormandi resumed her career, illustrating Vercors’ "Silence of the Sea" and exhibiting at galleries like Galerie du Pont des Arts. Her work "Young Girls from Hammameth" was acquired by the Louvre in the 1950s.

Living in Paris, she began biannual U.S. visits in 1956 and traveled Europe for portrait commissions. She died in 1971, with posthumous exhibitions in New York (1973) and Paris (2005).