Saly Noémi (szerk.): Gorka Lívia keramikusművész (Budapest, 2010)
Kollin András: Bibliográfia
1 the atmosphere of free artistic expression supposedly existing in the socialist countries. From the point of view of "autonomous" artists, those painters and sculptors who represented progressive schools of their respective arts, the status of applied artist was a loophole of sorts. And so Hungarian applied and graphic art enjoyed its heyday during the control and repression of the Kádár era.8 In the meantime, during the 60's and 70's, a new generation of ceramic artists emerged, headed by amongst others Árpád Csekovszky, Imre Schrammel, József Garányi and Károly Taindl, who drew attention to themselves with their style, incorporating various stylised motifs, a constructivist-cubist form structure, and abstract elements. Within this whole process, Géza Gorka and his daughter Lívia Gorka both represent a separate career and artistic path. The fact that Lívia Gorka deliberately Beginnings Lívia Gorka was born in 1925 in Verőce - and she was born into the ceramics "craft". The workshop and studio at the bottom of the garden, complete with firing kiln, was the stage for her formative years and the beginnings of her career. She passed her Master Potter examination in 1947. She did not go to College. The greatest living ceramic artist, Géza Gorka, did not allow his workshop in Verőce to be nationalised by the state, and so his daughter was barred entry to the College of Applied Art. And so their fates became intertwined, becoming almost as one. Lívia’s first works were fashioned under the influence of her father, and often practically inseparably in joint collaboration. So for example her naively simple, cylindrical figures of girls come about as a "more modern” variation of the folk figures her father made during his brief period in Losonc (Nőalak "Female figure", ceramic statuette, pre 1955, Museum of Applied Art, No.: 62.1062.1), and her small bowls and palm-sized pots, appearing from the mid 1950’s (Kaktusztartó "Cactus-holder" series, 1955, Museum of Applied Art, No.: 56.335.1-56.337.1), may be viewed as the direct withdrew herself from all fashion-related and political conceptional currents obviously had its price: she could rely only on her own strength and talent. Despite this, she remained true to her own, individual path. When, remembering her father, Lívia Gorka describes her talent as being both loyalty and treachery simultaneously, she is (also) telling us about herself and her relationship with her father, lust as we can equate the subsequent lines to him also: "First of all the absolute respect of everything, then the putting all of it aside. Talent is humility and big-headedness, discovery and departure from it. When they asked him along the way, why don't you do what the public wants, he replied: »the public will want what I'm doing«:.''9 continuation of Géza Gorka's experiments with cracked glaze and various colours and materials in the 30’s and 40's. The same can be said about the large bowls decorated with fish. We find similar formal and decorative solutions in the case of Lívia Gorka's early, roundshaped vases (Váza, "Vase", marked "Nógrádverőce, 1956”, Museum of Applied art, No.: 57.617.1). In several cases it is often very difficult at first glance to tell the difference between some of the later works of Géza Gorka and many of the early works of Lívia Gorka. The wheel throwing, the form, the colours and the decorative motifs recognisable in their works are often very similar indeed. We can safely assume that they mutually influenced each other as a result of successive works, experiments and discussions on the subject. (For instance we assume this to be the case in relation to the spherical vases produced between 1955 and 1964: Zöldsárga stilizált motívumos vázák, kaspók, "Vases and plant-pots with green and yellow stylised motifs").10 It is probable that they both worked on the same series' and patterns. (Her typical works of the 1950’s seem to suggest this conclusion: Vázák madár és halas motívumokkal, Fali tál két 36
