Tüskés Anna (szerk.): Omnis creatura significans - Tanulmányok Prokopp Mária 70. születésnapjára (2009)
Biography of Mária Prokopp
Biography Mária Prokopp She was born on 25 March 1939, in Esztergom, Hungary. She attended Eötvös Loránd University, Budapest, and studied histoiy of art and history. Her 1962 dissertation on the 14th-century frescos of the chapel of the Esztergom castle treated one of the themes that would occupy her entire life: fresco painting in the 14- 15th centuries in Hungary. Between 1962 and 1968 she worked in the Museum of Bálint Balassa, in Esztergom. Between 1969 and 1976 she was fellow of the Department of the History of Art at Eötvös Loránd University; between 1977 and 1993, a senior member; between 1993 and 2001, a university lecturer, and from 2001, she is a university professor. She defended her doctoral dissertation on the 14th- century frescoes of Gemer (Gömör, SK) in 1967 at Eötvös Loránd University. She became candidate of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences in 1976 with a dissertation on the influence of I4th-century Italian painting on Central-European and Hungarian fresco painting. She habilitated at Eötvös Loránd University in 1995 with a dissertation on Sassetta. She received several medals, prizes and honours, including the medal of Gyula Pasteiner (from the Hungarian Society of Archaeology and Histoiy of Art) in 1978, the medal of Arnold Ipoly (from the Hungarian Society of Archaeology and History of Art) in 1990, the Jenő Szervatiusz prize in 2007, and the honour of Eminent Erasmus Coordinator (from the Minister of Education and Culture) in 2007. From 1970 she went to field trips abroad regularly. She has been to Italy several times supported by the scholarship of the Hungarian Scholarship Committee and the Mellon scholarship to the Harvard University Center for Italian Renaissance Studies at Villa I Tatti, Firenze. In 1973 she went to France aided by a scholarship of the Hungarian Scholarship Committee. She also organized trips for university students to the Czech Republic, Poland, and Slovakia. She gave talks at several international conferences; below is a brief list of the ones she attended. 1969: Budapest, CIHA-congress; 1978: Köln, Parier conference; 1977: Poznan, Central-European Gothic wall paintings; 1983: Halle, Central-European wall paintings; 1986: Niedzica, Central-European art; 1994: Udine, restoration of Central-European wall paintings; 1996: Rome and Naples, International Congress of Hungarology; 2003: Milan, Lombard-Hungarian artistic relationships in the Middle Ages; 2007: Firenze, Villa I Tatti, at the “Renaissance Art in Hungary” conference she presented a paper titled “The Frescoes of the Studiolo of János Vitéz, archbishop of Esztergom (1465-1472);” 2008: Budapest, University Eötvös Loránd, international conference titled “The Renaissance in the Age of Mathias Corvinus of Hungary.” Her main focus in education and research is the fine arts in Italy and Central-Europe in the 13-I5th centuries. Her scientific results include the dating and the stylistic definition of i4-l5th-century wall paintings in the castle of Esztergom; the programme and the attribution of the frescoes of the Studiolo of János Vitéz in Esztergom; determining Italian connections of Central-European Gothic wall paintings; the analysis of the Gothic frescoes of Gemer (Gömör, SK), Spis (Szepesség, SK, PL) and Samorin (Somoija, SK); the examination of newly discovered Hungarian Gothic wall paintings at Keszthely, Siklós, Maconka, and Tor- naszentandrás; the catalogue of the I4lh-century paintings of the Christian Museum in Esztergom; a novel reconstruction of Sassetta’s Arte della Lana altarpiece; research and presentation of the European cult and artistic representations of the saints of the Árpád Dynasty; and the analysis of the frescoes of the Santa Maria Donna Regina church in Naples. 418
