A Herman Ottó Múzeum évkönyve 48. (2009)

Szabó Lilla: „Külön világban és külön időben" (Az Amerikában élő magyar képzőművészek és művészetük. A hivatalos magyar állásfoglalás az Amerikában élő magyar képzőművészekről)

IN A WORLD AND TIME APART Hungarian artists of the USA and their art. The complex relations between Hungarian-American artists and Hungarian government officials, Hungarian artists and art historians The oeuvre of Hungarian artists living in the USA during the 20th century is still unresearched for the greater part. This paper examines the Hungarian political and social attitudes towards the Hungarian artists who had settled in the USA or spent a longer time there. The complex naUtre of this relation is indicated by the fact that during the Socialist era, the position taken by state officials on these artists often differed from the sentiments of their fellowartist and non-official art history. Interest in the Hungarian artists living in countries other than Hungary underwent a revival in the early 1990s, with increasing interest being shown in the life and work of artists living in the neighbouring countries and in other parts of the world. Viewed from the States, a discussion of the art and art history of a Central European country based on where the artist was born or on the principle of the artist belonging to a particular nation might seem rather strange. The situation of the Hungarian artists living in neighbouring countries can be explained by the twists and rums of Hungarian history and the major historical crises. The dark and fateful periods of 20th century Hungarian history cast a long shadow over Hungarian culture, and determined the conditions under which Hungarian art developed. The different Hungarian émigré groups, representing different ideological values and social affiliations, can be linked to World War 1, the Hungarian Republic of Councils, the Trianon Peace Treaty, the interwar Horthy period, World War 2, the nationalisation of private property between in 1946-47, the Rákosi era, the Hungarian Uprising of 1956 and the reprisals in its wake, Kádár's hard dictatorship in the 1960s and the era of Goulash Communism from the late 1970s. Individual artistic attitudes embrace a broad spectrum, ranging from traditional, conservative, European values to the avantgárdé. The artists who had emigrated to the United States had almost without exception graduated from the Academy of Fine Arts in Budapest and thus their art is definitely rooted in the Hungarian artistic tradition. Their artistic vision and style was to some degree influenced by the Hungarian milieu, and the direction taken by a particular artist's art and, very often, its later flourishing, was in many cases nourished by the broad interpretation of Hungarian art from which it drew its inspiration. This paper focuses on the Hungarian artists whose art is emphatically part of Hungarian art within universal art. It must also be borne in mind that without detailed studies on the oeuvre of the Hungarian artists living and working abroad (including our compatriots in the United States), we can hardly speak about Hungarian art as a whole. In the decades after World War 2, the artists living and working in the United States were a taboo, and it was even forbidden to know about their existence. They lived in another world and the artists who had earlier visited this other world and had exhibited their works there retroactively also became part of that world (Vilmos Aba Novak, István Csóka, Willy Pogány and others; exhibitions: 1913-1914, New York, Buffalo, Chicago: Exhibition of contemporary graphic art in Hungary, Bohemia and Austria; 1915, San Francisco: Panama-Pacific International Exposition; 1916, San Diego; 1925, Exhibition of the Hungarian Copper Engraving Artists' Association, etc.). It is still not known whether Hungarian artists had exhibited their work at the International Exposition of 1916 held in San Diego. A total of five hundred works by seventy-six painters, forty-four graphic artists and twelve sculptors were displayed at the first major exhibition of Hungarian art in the United States. This major exhibition was preceded by another one, the "Exhibition of contemporary graphic art in Hungary, Bohemia and Austria", which also featured works by Hungarian artist. In 1925, the Cleveland Museum of Art sponsored an exhibition displaying a hundred works made by the Hungarian Copper Engraving Artists' Association, which then toured the States (Viktor Olgyai and his students, Vilmos Aba Novak, Károly Patkó, Nándor Lajos Varga, János Kmetfy). Aba Novak spent a longer period of time in New York in 1935.