Hajdu István: Gedő Ilka (1921–1985) festőművész kiállítása (A Magyar Nemzeti Galéria kiadványai 2004/3)

István Hajdú THE SPACES OF ILKA GEDO Narancs hátterű művirág 1969 (kat. 23.) Feliratos művirág, 1974-75 (kat. 80.) Ilka Gedő is one of the most significant, but at the same time one of the least known figures of twentieth-century Hungarian art. Although from her early youth onwards she had close contact with contemporary artists, historians of art, writers and philosophers, she is an independent artist, and her universally significant artistic oeuvre is unparalleled. Ilka Gedő's drawings and paintings are not simply a variation of contemporary artistic gestures. Her oeuvre is off the mainstream, it deviates from it and it has the traits of an outsider and, as such, it is an irritation-the 1946-1949 self-portrait series, for example, is definitely an irritation within Hungarian art: the artist's painful, agonising, self-revelatory self-portraits prepared between 1946 and 1949 and revealing a great deal of self-analysis are absolutely peerless in Hungarian art: they evoke both straightforward physical reality and emotional sensitivity in a unique manner. In 1949 Ilka Gedő, being captive of her autonomy, went through a deep artistic crisis, and stopped creating art for a considerably long period of her life. In the autumn of 1964, with a seemingly unexpected decision that, however, could hardly be said to have been taken fast, Ilka Gedő returned to her self. After a break of about fifteen years she started to draw again preparing portraits of the persons surrounding her that were sometimes reminiscent of caricatures sometimes of notes. A few months later she started to paint and in the next twenty years she devoted her life to painting with absolute commitment. Her paintings of the second artistic period that continue the colour tones, reminiscent of Bonnard, of her oil-pastels (self-portraits and Szentendre