Szilágyi András (szerk.): Ars Decorativa 20. (Budapest, 2001)

New Acquisitions

László Feszt the Junger, "Ex musicis" for Mor Mara Szász, mixed media, 1997 and through his other works depicting horses. Various technical solutions characterize his works, from among which the Museum purchased twelve copper engravings and six linocuts. Ferenc Bálint, a pupil of László Feszt the Elder, is also an artist of Transylvanian descent. Before his resettlement in Hungary his works drew on the traditions of the Székelyföld region in eastern Transylvania. The distinctive world of forms in his work is bound up with high technical standards. Twenty-four of his works were selected and purchased by the Museum. Géza Xantus, a student at the Academy of Arts in Rome, is a painter and graphic artist likewise of Transylvanian extraction. His monumental works are inspired by religious themes, his native heath and Transylvania, as are the bookplates selected by the Museum. Bookbindings, graphic works, manuscripts, negatives, and other documents bequeathed by Álmos Jaschik and his wife: Two departments, the Archives and the Minor Collections Department, have benefited from the numerous artworks and documents bequeathed by Álmos Jaschik and his wife. Álmos Jaschik, applied artist and teacher, has been unjustly neglected in Hungarian art history, despite the fact that a solo exhibition of his work was staged at the Petőfi Museum of Literature in 1985. His career and oeuvre have not been studied, although his individualistic work as a graphic artist was just as important as his teaching activity. In his summer schools he launched generations of artists on their separate creative careers, in such a way that, in addition to systematic and broadminded teaching, the importance of the moral foundations of the applied arts also received emphasis. The most valuable part of the bequest consists of Jaschik's unpublished Bible illustrations, which he made in the mid1930s. These are permeated by an individualistic approach: forty-six are mixed technique, large graphic works. (The Museum staged a festive, and highly popular, exhibition of these for Christmas 2000.) Of similarly outstanding value are the five bookbindings designed by the artist. Álmos Jaschik's work as an illustrator of books is represented by a number of illustrations and a number of books. His manuscripts, which are accompanied by sketches and which carefully meld together his work as a teacher and educator, are irreplaceable and hithertounknown documents relating to Jaschik's summer schools, where his students could master anatomy and the basics of drawing, just as they could the theory and practice of ornamentation. There are manuscripts entitled "The Bones and Muscles of the Head: Components of Facial Characteristics and Expressions" and "The Bones and Muscles of the Body: Components of Movement". Summer-school life is recorded in more than 100 photographs, and Jaschik's own works are documented in glass negatives. Among the last mentioned are many which fea-