Takács Imre – Buzási Enikő – Jávor Anna – Mikó Árpád szerk.: A Magyar Nemzeti Galéria Évkönyve, Művészettörténeti tanulmányok Mojzer Miklós hatvanadik születésnapjára (MNG Budapest, 1991)
MUCSI András: Gadányi Jenő és Esztergom
THE PAINTER JENŐ GADÁNYI AND ESZTERGOM One of the greatest lyricists and theoreticians of contemporary Hungarian painting, a founder of the avant-garde group after World War II called European School, Jenő Gadányi was a professor at the Academy of Applied Arts in Budapest in 1946-48. When the totalitarian art policy stripped him of his job, the uncompromising artist kept painting his major works in the recluse of his studio, showing an example of ethic behaviour to his fellow artists, including the avant-garde writer and painter condemned to silence, the proletarian Lajos Kassák. In the mid-'50s Gadányi and his wife, together with the writer Zsigmond Remenyik and the Kassáks, often stayed and worked in Esztergom, mostly upon the invitation of their teacher friend, Iván Dévényi, a patron of arts. The first of Gadányi's six exhibitions in Esztergom was organized and installed by Iván Dévényi, the first collector of Gadányi's paintings in Esztergom. The non-museum exhibition was in October 1954. In July 1955 Lajos Kassák, the eminent esthete and critic, could not do more than extol his old friend Gadányi's pictures in his diary. Some months later, in December 1955, a smallscale private exhibition was staged in the Christian Museum of Esztergom out of the output Kassák had admired earlier. The unusual venue was the studio of the painter-restorer of the museum, Dezső Varga. (In the hand-written invitations to the next exhibition there in October 1956, Endre Bálint called it the „restauration room".) Formerly the store of oriental carpets and medieval wooden statues, the room was also the first study of the three young art historians working in the museum, Miklós Mojzer, Éva Eszláry and András Mucsi. The small exhibition was opened by Jenő Gadányi himself, who also introduced his works. The next year he exhibitied his latest paintings again in the same place together with the other six members of the European School. This time the propaganda was widerspread and the invitations were designed and illustrated by the artists themselves. The show was again opened by one of the exhibiting artists, Endre Bálint, on 7 October 1956, who also painted a luxuriously colourful poster for the exhibition. On 9 June 1957 Jenő Gadányi opened Lajos Kassák's exhibition of paintings in the Municipal Library of Esztergom. Likewise in recluse, Kassák started to draw and paint again in the '50s upon Gadányi's encouragement. In May 1959 Iván Dévényi opened Gadányi's one-man show in Esztergom's Christian Museum. Gadányi's only work to be made upon an official commission, a woven tapestry of 163 x 203 cm entitled „Horses", was also put on display here. On this occasion, a small album with the reproductions of 20 Gadányi ink drawings and the artist's introductory study about his drawings was pulished in memory of the earlier exhibitions. After Jenő Gadányi's death (29 February 1960), upon his widow's request, a significant part of his estate (135 paintings and drawings) went into the custody of the Bálint Balassa Museum of Esztergom in hope of a permanent exhibition (1977). Originally, they were planned to be placed with the Christian Museum. Apart from several minor shows, the largest exhibition of Gadányi's estate was staged in the Bálint Balassa Museum in 1978.
