Benkő Andrea: A Guide to Petőfi Literary Museum (Budapest, 2009)

The Art and Relics Collection

THE ART AND RELICS COLLECTION

Béla Kondor's design for the title page of 'The Death of Ivan llych' by Leo Tolstoy (1959)

The strength of our Art Collection lies in graphic art; it is in this form that the conscious iconographical acquisition and orders for illustrations chiefly realise their purpose. Nearly every famous Hungarian artist is represented with at least one page in the 10,000 items, which contain originals and reproductions. In a quite exceptional way Béla Kondor's drawings and paintings synthesise what artistic representations of literary subjects may show and mean. The most widely known pieces in the collection, which numbers hundreds of items, are Dante és Vergilius [Dante and Vergilius], Jókai's Óceánia [OceaniaI, and illustrations for works by Thomas Mann, Tolstoy, Imre Madách and Attila József. The reflections on illustration articulated by Mihály Babits summarise the graphic artist's never- changing ars poetica: 'It is possible to translate a poem after all, but to illustrate it - what an artist and interpreter it takes! (...) Because he who draws a picture for a poem does not simply aspire to saying what the poet has already said: to say in pictures what the poet has said in words. (...) A picture not only expresses the message in a different way, it is also able to express something different from the words about the world. A poet speaks of inner things invisible to the eye. The realm of pictures is that of sight. (...) There must be a chance for an illustrator or illuminator to fuse into a loftier unit what he has received and what he gives. (...) Thus a good illustrator complements the complete and organic work of art received from the poet in such a way that through his contribution of pictures his creby an exhibition and then the purchasing of the quality pieces from among the works received. This means that our collection also represents several generations of contemporary Hungarian artists, primarily graphic artists. Important interpretations in paintings and graphics, and partly in plastic art, were created about the following authors or their works: Sándor Petőfi, Endre Ady, Attila József, Gyula Krúdy, Miklós Radnóti, Dezső Kosztolányi, József Katona and Kálmán Mikszáth. The completed works are hall-marked with the names of painters, graphic artists and sculptors, such as Viola Berki, Lajos Sváby, István ef Zámbó, Gábor Záborszky, Ildikó Várnagy, István Orosz, Róbert Swierkiweicz, András Böröcz, László Révész, János Szirtes, El Kazovszkij, Líviusz Gyulai, Frigyes König, Tamás Vígh, Ákos Muzsnay, Richard Török and Imre Szemethy.

Margit Kaffka (Photo: Olga Máté, Budapest, c. 1912)

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