Veszprémi Nóra - Jávor Anna - Advisory - Szücs György szerk.: A Magyar Nemzeti Galéria Évkönyve 2005-2007. 25/10 (MNG Budapest 2008)

LÓRÁND BERECZKY: The First Fifty Years - 50™ ANNIVERSARY OF THE HUNGARIAN NATIONAL GALLERY - Éva BAJKAY: Collecting Avant-Garde - A Subjective History

abstract pictures, I was to write their inventory cards! They were then stored, and I awaited their display anxiously. I was still waiting when the master died in 1972; the masterpieces would only be put on show in 1977, at a small memorial exhibition of his work on the ground floor of National Gallery now in its new building, the Buda Royal Palace. (Ills. 10-11) The other two abstract works had already begun their grand tour of Europe. They were on shown in Milan and Munich in 1971,

49 because the head of the Galleria del Levante, Emilio Bertonati, had bought them. Bortnyik advised Uitz on matters of sales for he had already been an experienced and willing partner of Western collectors. A fine catalogue was published with an introduction by Eva Körner, with whom I visited many Hungarian artists and collectors in the company of the Italian critic. This was how the first Hungarian genuine avant-garde exhibition came into being. The Icon Analyses now in the possession of the National Gallery were brought up from the depths of the stores to be hung in the permanent exhibition on a focal end wall on the second floor of Building C between 1983 and 1986, as well as 1987 and 2003. Whenever I passed them, I always remembered what stroke of luck had preserved these pictures from final destruction, though it was with them that the National Gallery Uitz collection became complete. With support from György Aczél, Pécs also tried to present Uitz's oeuvre in a separate building for a time. In 1972, soon after the master's death, negotiations began, and the Uitz Museum operated from 1978 to 1987,

50 with loans from the National Gallery and further remains coming home from Moscow. Uitz's name was made genuinely famous not by his memorial museum, but by the international exhibitions of the Hungarian avant-garde;

51 (Ills. 12-13) in Hungary, it was only on the centenary of the artist's birth that a monograph with an oeuvre catalogue could be published.

52 The homecoming of the Uitz oeuvre was a sign of détente.

53 Immediately afterwards, in 1970, the Tihanyi estate was brought home from Paris. And so was it no trifling matter in Hungary to have a Vasarely exhibition opened in the same year, and both Budapest and Pécs were bequeathed a wealth of works to fill a museum each. The most marked sign of the endeavour to present the work of Hungarians living abroad was the exhibition called Homage to the Native Soil, which Krisztina Passuth curated at the Arts Hall in 1970. A selection of the freshly acquired Uitzes and Tihanyis by the National Gallery were also put on at this show. This was thus a period acquisitions comparable only to that of the turn of the 19

lh and 20

lh centuries, when the masterworks of the previous century went into museum possession. In 1860, there was a national fundraising campaign to purchase the works of Károly Marko Sr. from Italy to enrich the arts collection of the National Museum.

54 As far as I am concerned, I regarded it my duty to research the works of Hungarian avant-gardists that ended up in foreign possession as the only way to make up for their want at home, as an imperative part of acquisition policy. I was fortunate enough in being able to acquire for the National Gallery important materials. Thanks to her husband, Tibor Gergely, we could select from the estate of Anna Lesznai brought home from the USA in 1977 and arrange her retrospective. In 1995, it was also due to a bequeathing that the National Gallery managed to acquire - following vexing red-tape activity - the works of Gizella Dömötör and Hugó Mund from Argentine, long thought to have been lost. Also from the USA, the Hungarian-related works and a cross-section of the whole oeuvre of Andor Weininger came into the possession of the National Gallery in 2002.

55 Highly appreciated on the contemporary art market, these internationally acknowledged works belonging to the classical avant-garde bear significant values and connections. Their acquisition, study and presentation belong to the lesser known chapters of the history of the National Gallery and forcedly belated Hungarian acquisitions. NOTES 1 Kovalovszky, Márta. "Sanfte Jahreszeit zwischen Eis und Dürre." In: Knoll, Hans ed. Die zweite Öffentlichkeit. Kunst in Ungarn im 20. Jahrhundert. Dresden: Verlag der Kunst, 1999, pp. 182-211. * Without which one was a practical outlaw in the eyes of the authorities, especially the police - the trans. 2 According to his birth certificate, Béla Uitz was born in a German-speaking family at Temes-Mehala (now part of Temesvár/Timisoara, Romania) in 1887; and, even at old age, this was the language he could most richly use, never learning Russian properly. 3 Possibly Antal Tóth, who had a job at the Sculpture Department after his practice term. Viktória Kovásznai and Gyöngyi Török from his year were employed by the National Gallery in 1968. 4 A Nyolcak és aktivisták. [Exhibitions of the Department of Prints and Drawings 1.] Curated and cat. int. by Pataky. Dénes. Budapest: Hungarian National Gallery (hereinafter: HNG), 1961; L'Art Hongrois du vingtième siècle. Le cercle des Huits et des Activistes. L'exposition a été réalisée par Krisztina Passuth et Márta Kovalovszky. Texte d'introduction Krisztina Passuth. Székesfehérvár: Galerie István Csók, 10 octobre - 31 décembre 1965. Székesfehérvár: Fehér M. Ny., 1965. 5 "Uitz Béla hatvanadik születésnapjára." Szabad Művészet, December, 1947, p. 241. 6 Pogány, Ö. Gábor. A magyar festészet forradalmárai. Budapest: Officina, n.d. [1947], pp. 19-20. 7 "He moved to the Soviet Union later, where he was offered significant commissions worthy of his bold style", op. cit., p. 63. 8 For the photo documentation of the 1958 visit at the HNG, sec HNG Archive, inv. nos.: 9801-9012/1958. 9 Mihályfi, Ernő. "A Magyar Forradalmi Művészet kiállítása Moszkvában." Műterem, 1958, no. 3, pp. 10-17. 10 Labourer representation continued to have a central role until the late 70s. See: Derkovits és a szocialista művészet. Exhibition curated by Kovalovszky, Márta and Júlia Szabó, cat. int. by Szabó, Júlia. Székesfehérvár: Csók István Képtár, 1968; Szocialista képzőművészek csoportja. Cat. int. by Oelmacher, Anna. Budapest: HNG, 1964; Borbély, László ed. Revolutionäre Kunst in Ungarn 1900-1925. Cat. int. by Pogány, Ö. Gábor. Karl-Marx-Stadt and Leipzig, 197374; Aradi, Nóra. Munkásábrázolás a magyar képzőművészetben. N.p. [Budapest]: Kossuth Kiadó, 1976. 11 Bölöni, György. "Egy forradalmi nemzedék." In: Műterem, 1958, no. 1, p. 4. Here Pór, Berény. Uitz, Derkovits, and Dcsi Huber were no longer dubbed formalists, but called exemplary. See Pataki, Gábor. "A 'hivatott kertészek'. Képzőművészeti kritika 1957-1965 között." In: Nagy, Ildikó ed. Hatvanas évek. Budapest: Képzőművészeti Kiadó-HNG-Ludwig Múzeum, 1991, pp. 28-32. Ernő Mihályfi, whose stringent views determined the tone the Magyar Nemzet took on, had collected these painters already in the pre-war years. It was in the early sixties that Eva Korner began to work on her scholarly monograph of Derkovits, which was to be published in 1968. 12 Minutes taken at the meeting of the activists of the Association of Hungarian Fine and Applied Artists on September 24, 1956, Archive of the Research Institute for Art History of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences inv. no.: MKCS-C1-2/1976.8. 13 Ék, Sándor. A realizmus zászlója alatt. A festő világnézete. Int. by Pogány, Ö. Gábor. Budapest: Képzőművészeti Alap, 1954; Pogány, Ö. Gábor ed. Sándor Ék. Malerei und Grafik. Berlin, 1960; Pogány, Ö. Gábor. Ék Sándor. Budapest: Corvina, 1963. 14 According to the data found in the Archive of the Hungarian University of Fine Arts, Sándor Ék chaired the Department of Graphic Arts from 1949 to 1973.