Szilágyi András (szerk.): Ars Decorativa 18. (Budapest, 1999)

New acquisitions 1998

"Lament of the Virgin Mary" - artist book Ilona Kiss, 1996 Paint on paper, mixed technique 47 x 58.8 cm Ilona Kiss has achieved international recognition not only through her work as a graphic artist, but also through the artist book (book object) genre. She is a founding member of Society of Hungarian Makers of Artist Books and was its president until 1997. Since 1977 she has taken part in many exhibitions in Hungary and in foreign countries, winning scholarships abroad in order to make artist books. Works by her are kept in German, Swiss and Hungarian public collections. In Hungary the especially popular artist book genre attests spectacularly to the fact that fine arts and applied arts merge together at the edges; the artificial separation of the two does not produce recouraging results. For its part the Museum of Applied Arts - uniquely among public collections in Hungary - collects books, as relics of book art or on account of their "artistic appearance". Up until now, however, no artist book had been acquired by the Museum of Applied Arts, which has an extremely rich collection of bookbindings. Hence, in the absence of not only works but also of the entire genre, the Museum's collection was not "complete". One of Ilona Kiss's most beautiful artist books is "The Lament of the Virgin Mary", was made in the year of the Millecentenary. This work is a recent and individual document on the research conducted by Hungarian artists in connection with this anniversary, and through which they discovered for themselves the oldest relics in Hungarian culture. The 14th-century text finds expression in the materials and symbols of the 20th century, and the work of art thus created is much more than a present-day interpretation of an old literary work: it erects a huge monument, appropriate for a public collection, to the first known poem in Hungarian. The importance of this purchase was conveyed to the public by Mihály Schéner in the 12 October 1998 issue of the literary journal Élet és Irodalom, in his article on Ilona Kiss's work. Purchased from the artist, with funds from the National Cultural Foundation, 1998 Inv. No.: 98.131 Agnes Prékopa