Hann Ferenc: Vaszkó Erzsébet (Szentendre, 1983)

according to their inherent laws, discovering the inner self with a powerful, genuine realization of high-level artistic technique.

The most essential features of Vaszkó’s art are distinctly described by János Frank in his book of essays „Speaking Ateliers” (Szóra birt műtermek, publ. by Magvető, Budapest 1975): „Her paintings are strikingly powerful, but not deorative. Neither are they feminine works. They have just that touch of femininitywhich is needed for all sorts of artistic creation. Although her latest pictures are deeply rooted into signs, sometimes letters. Besides ,,constructivity/7 we may use the term „surrealism to describe her art, but even so we would not be exact enough. Erzsébet Vaszkó has a well marked character with a tradition of its own, notwithstanding in unity with the world and its arts, or with contemporary Hungarian trends."

Erzsébet Vaszkó was born at Nagykikinda in 1902. She spent most of her childhood among the Carpathian mountains. This experience had a manifest effect on her pictures during the 40s' (e. g. Village in Máramaros, 1942).

She graduated from the School of Fine Arts of Budapest in 1929, getting her B. A. as János Vaszary’s pupil. Vaszary, who was teaching attitudes rather than styles, started many artists of different careers.

The first public show of Vaszkó’s paintings took place at the collective exhibitions of Új Művészek Egyesülete (UME = New Artists’ Society). She had been a member of that progressive group of artists since 1931. She was also exhibiting at the Venice Biennial Exhibition of the year 1940. Her first private show was at „Alkotás” Artists’ House in Budapest in 1944. Until 1947 she was presenting her works at Ernst Museum (Budapest), later she hardly let hear from herself till her exhibition at Csók Gallery (Budapest) in 1964. In the meantime she was working as a graphic designer at a contractor’s office.

The long hiatus has radically changed her artistic attitude. Her earlier, pictorial way of painting, which was essentially descriptive, has been taken over by a basically lyrical attitude, moving towards non-representational art, the object of which is no longer a real, fixed world filtrated through the artist’s personality, but the inner happenings of the soul.

This period, which resulted the main part of her oeuvre, has been going on till now; sometimes enriched by a serigraphic representation of early works.

Vaszkó’s chief instrument of this period is crayon. She is fond of grave, somber colours (this was manifest during her early period as well); sometimes she