A Merics gyűjtemény, 2002

A MERICS GYŰJTEMÉNY H their status be consciously acknowledged, but at the same time they could give certain status to the artists whose works of art they showed. At this point there is no space and chance to give not evén an approximate outline of Hungárián art collection in the recent decades. It is enough to state that the well-known, significant art collections nowadays have an unavoidable role not only in revealing life-works but they might alsó have an influence in defining the trends of researches with a wider horizon in history of art. We could organize the first great, comprehensive exhibition of the Collection of Imre Merics in the Museum of King Saint Stephen in Székesfehérvár. As an art histórián, too, I will be obliged to my friend, Sándor Pinczehelyi forever, since he was the one who took me to the house of Imre Merics, the veterinarian in Tormás. While I was able to get acquainted with an unbelievably kind man and his imaginary-real surroundings in the tiny village of Baranya county, I was not fascinated by the great size and astonishing richness of his collection in the first place, but rather by the astounding cohesion, the natural coherent power of it. The introduction to the catalogue of the exhibition was written by György Várkonyi, who had known the collection well before. In this he gave the outiine of the most significant points of the birth and the history of the slow building up proccss of an extensive collection consistendy looking intő several directions, refiising to accept all the learned categories and considerations of art history. At the end of his introduction (with a non-concealed worry) he called the experimentál presentation of this collection in a museum (a collection reaching the horizon of the artists expressing themselves with tools ranging from 'the classical avantgárdé' to the 'popular mythological' ones) 'an attempt at the impossible'. 'If it works, it will certainly be a revelation', he wrote. Well, it worked, as proved by the long list of critiques which appeared about the exhibition. The success was not simply due to what the organizers did but rather the unusual attitűdé of the coUector, which was unknown before, as Várkonyi pointed out in his introduction first. He said about , Merics that this interesting man was actually collecting friendships and not paintings. Humán relationship is the most important for him, since he is alsó an art coUector, which only becomes complete in obtaining those certain works of art. Imre Merics does not know the commercial notion of profit, and the intellectual content of the artistic product is almost secondary for him. His generál approach is emotional in the first place, he looks for and receives the message of the dififerent works of art, the harmony of colours, the order of forms with the same open heart as he looks for and receives the friendships of the artists, the humán beings, who have created the works of art. This almost náive, honest openness connects the artists' ambitions (who try to go intő dififerent directions and styles) and verifies the unity of the astonishingly colourflil Merics Collection. This is the reason why it is possible to organize this exhibition selecting according to the most strict considerations of art history. But the example of the above-mentioned exhibition in Székesfehérvár or just exactly this book seem more interesting, if we focus on the particular inner cohesion of the collection to reveal its reál picture and nature for the professional and amateur public. The first impression made by the book is probably heterogeneous, this alsó seems to be proven by superficial statistics. According to this the book takes intő consideration the objects of approxi-