Szilasi Ágota, H.: Víz - fény-szín-tér. Stílusvariációk egy technikára. Egri Országos Akvarell Biennálé 1968-2004 a Dobó István Vármúzeum kortárs akvarell gyűjteménye (Eger, 2006)

Litkei, Berta Mayer, Pál Miháltz, Emil Szekeres, Erzsébet Udvardy and András Végh. Satisfaction was derived from the fact that the Ministry of Culture bought three of the works on show for the collections of the István Dobó Castle Museum and the Heves County Council. The sum of 40,000 forints given to make these purchases was primarily designed to form the basis of a new contemporary watercolour collection at the Eger museum taken primarily from works shown at the biennials. This was also the first year in which the introduction to the catalogue did not bemoan the state of the watercolour as a medium or take a defensive stance. It was no longer necessary to say that watercolours were capable of much more than the inferior, forgettable, obsolete, amateurish impressionism being turned out to produce whatever pleased the eye when in fact it could produce „works imbued with the unfathomable wonders of an unbelievably rich world." (Loránd Bereczky)

The degree to which the medium had developed during the first ten years of the biennial can be gauged by the new stipulations which appeared at the beginning of the eighties. In recognition of the greater possibilities which were now presenting themselves the museum gave the seventh exhibition the title „The Watercolour at the Limits". Thus, the biennial started to become an „art forum" insofar as it set the future of watercolour painting a new agenda. From this biennial onwards „the watercolour can now rightly be associated with the notion of a fresh, new and living art" (Péter Kovács) This new latent vitality was perhaps due to the appointment of a new art historian to organize the biennial, a change which resulted in a break from habits dating back to the 1970s. Thus, the regulations no longer stipulated that the exhibition concentrate on the development of the watercolour medium per se but rather that "the biennial use the definition of the watercolour in its widest sense, including for example gouache, tempera, and watercolours combining the use of other techniques" and that works should be submitted accordingly.

The ninth exhibition received a mixed reception. In contrast to the introduction to the catalogue written by Magdolna Supka, who warmed to the poetic sentiments expressed in her beloved medium, the opinions of the daily newspaper Népszabadság were expressed in harsher and more critical terms. The paper was alone in drawing its readers' attention to the way in which the biennale was organized,

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