Kovács Zita - Bálint Attila : Az Éber-Emlékház. Id. Éber Sándor, ifj. Éber Sándor és Éber Anna művészete - A Bajai Türr István Múzeum kiadványai 28. (Baja, 1999)
nature. The serenity of the grand river and the glowing red hues of the willows of the flood-plains remain his preferred subjects for the rest of his life. He takes good care of his father's artistic estate and of the Éber collection, which consists of rarities of interest for the art historian, for the student of local history, for the ethnographer, and for the archeologist. Sándor Éber, Jr. continued to collect ethnographic objects. He enriched the collection with pitchers, water pots and distaffs (girdable tools used for the manual spinning of hemp and flax) and woven fabrics from the multiethnic region of Bácska. From her father's studio, Anna Éber's career lead straight to the National Academy of Arts. She took Gyula Rudnay's courses. In 1930, she won a year's grant to live, study and work in the Accademia Belle Artin of Florence, whereafter she continued her studies in Rome at the Academy of Fine Arts. In 1930, she participated at an exhibition organized by the National Salon under the title The Roman School; she was awarded the silver prize. Instead of staying in the little town, the young and talented artist opted to live in Budapest. From 1932 to 1958, she gave evening courses organized by the Cultural Commission. Later, from 1959 to 1969, she worked as an art teacher. During the 1950s, she made decorations for the Hungarian Film Factory. She decorated public buildings and painted landscapes and portraits. She donated nine of her works to her home town, each painted in bright, happy colors. These are displayed in the room overlooking the courtyard. Anna Eber's triple portrait of her mother bears witness to the deep love and admiration with which the painter looked at her mother. Her painting Édesapám alszik, or "My father, asleep", is a memorial of the father, expressing the very strength and belief she inherited from her artist father. This is the ars poetica that radiates from each of her works of art: "I see life in every bud, I see trees, flowers, sunsets... I paint the sentiments of my soul, I paint symbols... I am only happy when I can paint; however tired I may be, when I paint, new energies spring up within me..." Walking through the Éber Memorial House, the visitor might ask: what is this place exactly? Is it a gallery? A museum? A folk art collection? It's neither, yet it is a little of each of them. It is a cross section of two hundred years. It is a house which, during the turn of the century, consisted of two little rooms and a kitchen. As years passed, as the Éber's seven children were born one after the other, always new rooms were added to the building until it reached its present form - this is the architectural history of the house. There is, however, another story to it; as Sándor Éber, Jr. said in the fall of 1981 : "As, walking along the eroding, clayey bank of the Danube, you see when the flood came and when the clay deposits formed, you can see in this house when during the last 150 23
