A Hajdú-Bihar Megyei Levéltár évkönyve 7. 1980 (Debrecen, 1980)
Tanulmányok - Bíró Lajos: Képzőművészeti szervezkedés Debrecenben 1945-1949
group in Debrecen before, which indicates that this organization was quite open, and consequently standards were very low. Any member of the Trade Union had the right to exhibit, and if somebody did so, he was automatically labelled ’artist’. This situation was made even worse by the abscence of the best artists from the meetings and exhibitions, which fact throws light opon the much favoured slogan in the program of the Union their ’inner harmony’. The intention to form a well-organized group remained but a wish in the first year, since the claim for unity did not spring from an inherent need, but from the knowledge of having to belong together. Owing to the great differences in artistic merits this large group also lacked the intellectual atmosphere necessary to the pursuit of integration. Even later on, it was nothing more than an ’intellectual coalition’ aimed at the fulfillment of a social- educational task, which was best fulfilled in the case of organizing the public school of arts by the Comittee of Public Education, and in the case of its efforts to open exhibitions, spread artistic knowledge and establish a cultural atmosphere in public life. Only after the year of decision did it become a conscious effort to reinterprete the social function of art, which is a fundamental problem in our present history of art too. 7 Évkönyv VII. 97