Szilágyi András (szerk.): Ars Decorativa 27. (Budapest, 2009)

Piroska ÁCS: "These Robes Will Appear Like a Vision..."

printed fabric from 1934 onwards. She opened a showroom beside her workshop in 1936.

1

8 In 1937, she won the Silver Wreath award of the national master contest. Owing to the great volume of material required for the Pécs Cathedral vestments, she employed a graduate of the School of Applied Arts Endre Rozs

1

9 and graphic artist Sári Mészáros. After the Second World War, Eva Szabó continued working in her own workshop for a while and again took part in Hungarian and international exhibitions. In 1952, with her nine looms, she became a member of the Textile Artists' Association, for which she became artistic director and designer. Private orders gave way to work for the interior decoration of public buildings. The products of that period were displayed by the Museum of Applied Arts in a dedicated exhibition in 1968. It was not until 1996, however, that the Pécs Cathedral robes appeared in the Museum of Applied Arts, in an exhibition of her whole oeuvre (fig. 10). This also featured the model piece for the vestments, a dalmatic with a back panel of yellow repp (fig. 11), which the museum purchased directly from the artist for 2500 forints in 1961 (MAA Textile Collection, inv. no.: 61.885.1.) together with the peg plans for the decoration of the vestments (MAA Archive, inv. no: KRTF 787-800). Eva Szabó also designed and produced a printed hanging in 1937-38. This was the "De Sancto Stephano Rege" or St Stephen Canvas (fig. 12): the motifs, in white on a bluish ground, are the Hungarian saints of the House of Árpád (St Stephen, St Emeric, St Ladislas, Blessed Margaret, St Elizabeth), the Hungarian coats of arms of the House of Árpád, and the ten bishoprics founded by St Stephen. These are connected by text ribbons running in an arch. On each side is a Latin text, the psalm to St Stephen,

2

0 and the ornaments among the texts were based on the relief pattern on St Stephens stone sarcophagus. This canvas was made for a decorative purpose, and contemporary press photographs show that it formed the pulpit hanging for the great assembly in preparation for the 34

t

h International Eucharistie Congress. NOTES 1 Dr Antal Somogyi: 'A pécsi székesegyház jubileumi ornárusa' [The commemorative ceremonial robes for Pécs Cathedral]. In.: Magyar Iparművészet 1938, 100. 2 Aliz Torday: P. Szabó Eva életmű-kiállítása [Exhibition of the oeuvre of Eva P. Szabó]. Budapest, 1996. (Hereinafter: Torday 1996). 3 The Hungarian Catholic Episcopate passed the programme for the "double holy year" in October 1937. Upon the announcement of the commemoration of the 900

cl

1 anniversary of the first apostolic King of Hungary in 1938, they decided to take the Holy Right Hand on a procession throughout the country. The series of events was planned to open on 30 May, immediately after the World Eucharistie Congress. 4 Éva Szabó wrote of their first meeting in her memoirs: "The theology professor, Antal Somogyi, held a lecture on modern church architecture at the Free University in autumn 1936, at which I was in the audience. In addition to slides, he displayed reproductions, and I helped him take them down after the lecture. As soon as we introduced ourselves, I came up with the plan that if I could weave birds, I could also weave heads." Museum of Applied Arts, Archives, KLT 331/1. 5 This conception fitted well with the liturgical movement propagated and published by Antal Somogyi. It was an intellectual current which formed a source of religious renewal and became an important 132