Zwickl András szerk.: Árkádia tájain, Szőnyi István és köre 1918–1928. (A Magyar Nemzeti Galéria kiadványai 2001/3)

TANULMÁNYOK - FERENC ZSÁKOVICS: "The Young Hungarian Etchers" - The Renewal of Graphical Art after the First World War

and Jenő Tarjáni Simkovics (1927), with Erzsébet Aszódi Weil closing the list (1929)2° By the mid1920s the selected works of the etching generation also made it to the graphical collection of the Budapest Museum of Fine Arts. Edith Hoffmann, the curator of the collection, had been following the progress of the young artists since the beginning of the decade; she went to see their exhibitions and purchased some of their works very early on. Many of the art dealers and art collectors donated drawings and prints. Some of István Szőnyi's early graphics were given to the collection by Ernő Rados in 1921 and by Vilmos Szilárd in 1923. Between 1924 and 1925 the Collection acquired etchings from the publisher Magyar Műkiadó, and a smaller selection of graphics from the Hungarian Etching Workshop, which included works by Vilmos Aba-Novák, Géza Bene, Kálmán Istókovits, Károly Patkó and Jenő Tarjáni Simkovics as well as others, went into the Museum's possession in 19260 Several of these - the works of Aba-Novák, Istókovits, Szőnyi and Varga - featured in the Museum's representative exhibition entitled /9* and 20'-Century Hungarian Graphics (1924), next to the compositions of János Kmetty, Imre Szobotka and Béla Uitz/

8 In 1931 Nándor Lajos Varga, himself a former student of Olgyai's, replaced the elderly master at the head of the Graphics Department of the Academy of Fine Arts. The second event in the series of exhibitions presenting the history of Hungarian graphics, held at the Academy in 1943, focused on the etchings produced after the First World War. The graphical sheets made in the period between 1920 and 1930 most of which had been executed in the Academy's graphical workshop - were selected from the Department's archives/" "These ten years formed an unprecedented period of flourish in graphical art," Artúr Elek described the period in question in his critique Grafikai művészetünk hőskora. "Strikingly talented, stupendously original and amazingly trained artists appeared one after the other, if not simultaneously, who spurred each other on to even greater successes by their own examples. Viktor Olgyai was the apostle and relentlessly enthusiastic master, teacher and motivator of this period. The leading members of this generation of graphic artists had mostly been trained in his class. Through their talents and wonderful results, their inspirational influence irradiated outside the Academy, affecting artists in faraway areas, and not just their contemporaries but members of the older generation also, with the result that sometimes they awakened the latent graphical talents in artists who had never before engaged in graphics, and never even considered working in the graphic medium."

60 NOTES 1 On ihe graphics of artists forced into emigration after the fall of the Council Republic see: Eva R. Bajkay (ed.) A magyar grafika külföldön. Bécs 1919-1933 (cat.) Magyar Nemzeti Galéria, Budapest, 1982; Eva R. Bajkay (ed.) A magyar grafika külföldön. Németország 1919-1933 (cat.) Magyar Nemzeti Galéria, Budapest, 1989 2 Varga 1937; Nándor Lajos Varga: Adattár a metszőművészethez vol. If Fametszők és rézkarcolók munkasora 1891-1944, The author's publication, Budapest, 1945 3 The graphic art of the period was discussed in a few longer essays by Artúr Elek and Károly Rosner: Elek 1930; Elek 1937; Rosner 1938 4 On the period of high inflation after the war see: Lyka 1984, pp. 13-21; Ignác Romsics: A bethleni konszolidáció, ín: Ferenc Pölöskei-Jenő Gergely-Lajos Izsák (ed.): Magyarország története 1918-1990. Korona Kiadó, Budapest, 1995, pp. 68-99 5 Lyka 1984, p. 20. 6 Elek 1937, p. 205. 7 Artúr Elek published a critigue on the exhibition in Auróra in Nyugat, and Máriusz Rabinovszky wrote on the exhibition in Helikon Galéria in Ars Una: Elek 1922; Rabinovszky: Magyar grafikusok, Ars Una, 1/4. January 1924, pp. 165-166 8 N.N.: Magyar rézkarcok, A Műbarát, 11/10, 1922, p. 205. 9 In the Mentor's reading room the public was treated to a "permanent graphic exhibition" of works by the emigrant artists János Mattis Teutsch, Béla Uitz and Sándor Bortnyik, as well as artists working in Hungary. Csaplár 1996, pp. 2-3. 1 0 According to adverts placed in Ars Una during 1 923 and 1 924, the publisher Magyar Műkiadó was selling "drawings, etchings and lithographs by modern Hungarian and foreign artists", among others Lieberman, Slevogt, and Corinth. Ars Una, 1/1. October 1923. 1 1 István Szőnyi 1923, Aba-Novák 1923 12 Máriusz Rabinovszky: Művészi sokszorosító eljárások, Nyugat, 1926/1. p. 93. 13 Edith Hoffmann: Útmutatások a metszetgyűjtéshez, Műbarát, 1/3. March 15, 1921, pp. 50-53.; Metszetek állapotáról és restaurálásáról, Műbarát, 1/4. April 1, 1921, pp. 73-75.; A metszetek „étab-iról Hit, Műbarát, 1/8. June 1, 1921, pp. 165-168., Műbarát, 1/9-10. June 15, 1921, pp. 189-193; Rézlemezekés fadúcok sorsáról, Műbarát, 1/15. September 15, 1921, pp. 265-268. 14 Edith Hoffmann op.cit, p. 50. 15 Ernő Rados (?-?), art dealer and art collector, who was Gyula Hincz' and Géza Bene's Maecenas in the 1920s. "Business was getting stronger. People interested in etching took to visiting the studio, occasionally accompanied by buyers and art dealers, the number of purchases went up, and that showed up on the boys, loo ..." Nagy 1983, p. 93. 16 Vilmos Szilárd (?-1964), the director of the art business Auróra Műkereskedelmi RT and the editor of the magazine A Műgyűjtő. Part of his collection was donated to the Hungarian National Gallery's Department of Graphics and Drawings in 1940 (inv.no.: 19402039-2825), and part of it the Gallery purchased from his bequest in 1967 (inv.no.: G.

67.27-69, G.

67.93-244). 1 7 Rudolf Bedő ( 1 891 -1 978), art collector and art writer. Several items from his collection of drawings was added to the art collection of the Janus Pannonius Museum. Romváry Ferenc: A Modern Magyar Képtár története III., in: A Janus Pannonius Múzeum Evkönyve 1972-73, Pécs, 1975, pp. 287-296. 1 8 József Ladányi (ed.): Válogatás Füst Milán műgyűjteményéből (cat.), Budapest, Petőfi Irodalmi Múzeum; 1992, Bajkay 1992b