ILKA GEDŐ, THE GRAPHIC ARTIST

INTRODUCTION

14. Sketchbook no. 1, 1932, page 27

"From the age of eleven Ilka Gedő drew, at first the forms and colours that excited her as a child during her regular summer holidays on the banks of the Danube in the towns of Kisoroszi, Nagymaros and Szentendre, and later in their Budapest home. Her vivid imagination and excellent sense of colour and form were already manifested in her childhood drawings.

Ilka Gedő mentioned the names of three artists who in the late 30s and early 40s taught her figure drawing, painting and a knowledge of materials.

All three artists were of Jewish origin, and later died in World War II. The oldest and most distinguished artist among them was Viktor Erdei (1879-1944), and because of his relationship with Ilka's family he taught her for many years.

Viktor Erdei was a painter and graphic artist of the naturalist-impressionist and Art Nouveau styles. Today he is almost forgotten. However, at the beginning of the century, the most significant art critic of the time, Lajos

Fülep, wrote about his activities with great respect. Ilka Gedő's second teacher was Tibor Gallé (1896-1944), a graphic artist famous for his etchings and linocuts. He opened a school in his Budapest studio. István Örkényi Strasser (1911-1944) was a sculptor. Through his school and exhibitions he was connected with the OMIKE (The Hungarian National Cultural Association of Jews). From István Örkényi Strasser, Ilka Gedő learnt the firmness of sculp­

turesque modelling and the representation of volume.

During her studies, Ilka Gedő quickly developed as an artist. This might have been the reason Róbert Berény and Rudolf Diener-Dénes, representatives of the first generation of Hungarian avant-garde art, did not suggest academic studies for her. The young girl's drawings were marks of a bold 'handwriting' which would not have fit into the classically proportioned natural form of representation practised at the Academy at that time." (Júlia Szabó: Ilka Gedő's Artistic Activities In: The Art o f Ilka Gedő, Budapest, 1997, pp. 48-49.)

Ghetto Drawings (1944)

"In 1944 Ilka Gedő was living in the ghetto, where she also made drawings, mainly in pencil. She recorded the thin figure and large pensive eyes of her young cousin, drew pictures of a small boy, staring from behind his spectacles, and of weak old people and exasperated women and mothers. These simple line drawingsare the first masterpieces in Ilka Gedő's oeuvre, and some of them manifest a sculpturesque way of modelling. Their faithfulness to reality has a historical significance. Despite their small dimensions, these drawings of Word War II possess the same weight as Henry Moore's drawings of air-raids in London." (Júlia Szabó: Ilka Gedő's Artistic Activities In: The A rt o f Ilka Gedő, Budapest, 1997, p. 51.)

Self-portraits (1 94 4 -1 9 4 9 )

"The ((Sitter Ilka Gedő», in most cases, is sitting with her hands in her lap, sometimes she tilts her head to the side or rests her elbow on the table. There are drawings showing only her head and bare neck, while in other drawings she is represented with a light shawl tied underthe chin as if she were a working or a peasant woman. There are also self-portraits with strange hats, in which she isas mysterious and elegant as the heroines of middle-class novels, secretly adored and beloved. (...) This introverted concentration and ascetic attitude of repetition manifested in her series of self-portraits is unparalleled.

In European drawing it may be compared to Giacometti's series of self- portraits. Her art can also be compared with Antonin Artaud's self-portraits drawn with colourful and entangled lines. Antonin Artaud overly confessed that the human face cannot be represented in art via symbolic forms, but it must be drawn from morning till night in the state of two hundred thousand dreams because the human face is the body of the Ego; it is the power of life in the body, which is the cave of death. Ilka Gedő did not know Antonin Artaud's

concepts, conceived in 1947, but she drew and painted her smaller and larger self-portraits with similarly stubborn and exclusive attention. These works are masterpieces, but besides her family and a few friends, no one saw them at the time they were made."(Júlia Szabó: Ilka Gedő's Artistic Activities In: The Art o f Ilka Gedő, Budapest, 1997, p. 52. and p. 53.)

Table series (1 9 4 7 -1 9 4 9 )

"The subject of these drawings, a small and narrow, always visible table, is prosaic. This table is always at hand, and because of this, the everyday miracle and metamorphosis of the visual image unfolds gradually. The objects to be found on the table, and the shadow of the light falling on the table, result in thousands of small modifications. Everyone knows the most popular game of our imagination: if we persistently watch the cracks on the wall, our mind soon starts to project into them meaningful forms, and we end up being able to discern a number of them. (...) In the case of Ilka Gedő the game of the imagination became a factor of artistic creation. In the Table Drawings, the lines are never the contour closing an area; they always move, and by their motion they liberate mysterious energies. One has the feeling that the sunshine has etched its playful traces onto the sheets where those drawings are found."

(István F. Mészáros: Moon Masks, Glittering Triangles in: The Art o f Ilka Gedő, Budapest, 1997, p. 75)

"I would like to write now once again on the drawings. Júlia Szabó was absolutely right to compare them to Giacometti's works. Any drawing collec­

tion in the world should regard it appropriate to acquire drawings by Ilka Gedő.

These drawings are full of torment and mystery. They let the viewer only guess the physiognomy. The obvious reason for this is that in the self-portrait drawings, the increasingly independent lines are a thousand times more important than the physiognomy. Instead of being used for reflecting the psyche through physiognomy, these lines follow the emotions. The compo­

sition of the later oil paintings probably originates from these increasingly independent batches of drawing lines. However, to me the Table Drawings are most wonderful. I still remember them from the studio exhibition of 1964.

In Júlia Szabó's place I would have exhibited many more of them. (People say there are many more.) These table drawings are beautiful, delicate, clumsy, convulsive, tormenting, deplorable, fearsome. The lines start out from the object and whither away in the line. The surfaces of these tables are weighty, yet they float in the air. (Please excuse me for the banality, these tables float in the air as deplorably and vulnerably «as human beings in life.*" (A quote from László Beke's letter dated 10 August 1980 written to Ilka Gedő. The manu­

script of this letter was discovered in the artist's estate.)

Ilka Gedő was always preoccupied with the "personality" of the objects in her environment. Later on in her life she was also fond of her somewhat worn furniture, which preserved the design of the early 20th century and bore a testimony to Art Nouveau. However, as far as I know, she made a series of enigmatic drawings only about these two, seemingly fragile but well-con­

structed interlocking tables. In these drawings the object and, in the invisible background, that something that we could call the object's aura, come to life.

Thus, amidst a multitude of drawing variations that can be compared to

musical variations, these tables become persons. However, the furniture, manifesting the design style of some decades before, is also the past that has been passed on to the artist as a gift from bygone times. Through the works and instruction of his masters, Viktor Erdei and Tibor Gallé, Ilka Gedő may probably have become acquainted with the message of the line symbolism of the fin desiécle. The artist grasped and responded to this message. These large­

sized drawings, depicting the life of an object, have a significance in Hungarian and European art history comparable to the works of the most famous graphic artists of the fin de siécle." (Júlia Szabó: Opening Speech, 5 October 2001, Municipal Picture Gallery of the Budapest Historical Museum)

The Ganz factory (1 94 7 -1 9 4 8 )

"The Ganz factory, situated at Margit körút in Budapest, was a large enter­

prise, producing elements for electrical engineering in one plant, and metal parts for machines and tools in another plant. In the late 1940's after the war, it offered an educational programme, organised by a liberally minded engineer.

Ilka Gedő was welcome on the premises to sit and draw, even if the result did not correspond to the official image of a worker. In her diaries Ilka Gedő mentions the fantasy architecture of the Berlin architect Bruno Taut as well as the works by the Italian futurist Gino Severini. These references testify to her keen interest at a time when little or no information travelled across the Eastern borders. The kinship of the present drawings to Alberto Giacometti remains a curious phenomenon, since the artist saw Giacometti's work only in the mid 1960s." From the exhibition catalogue: Ilka Gedő (1921-1985) Draw/ngs and Posfe/s(November21st-December 29th, 1995) (An exhibition organised in co-operation with Janos Gat Gallery) Catalogue by Elisabeth Kashey/Shepherd Gallery 21 East 84th Street, New York, N.Y. 10028)

15. Sketchbook no. 2, 1954, page 4

187

THE GRAPHIC WORKS OF ILKA GEDO

21. Man a t the Fire-Screen, 1944, paper, pencil, 232 x 204 mm, private collection

22. Sleeping Woman in the Ghetto, from folder 10, 1944, pencil, paper, 280 x 2 1 6 mm, signed a t lower right: Gedo Ilka, Hungarian N ational Gallery

FO LD ERS

The artist herself arranged and filed her extensive graphic work, including several topics, into folders. Most of the titles on the folders originate from Ilka Gedo. These titles are in italic letters and translated from Hungarian.

All titles and/or remarks not originating from the artist are in standing letters.

The number indicated on the folder is in brackets. The inventory of folders published below also includes the folders that have been created since the artist's death. Most of the drawings have been put into passepartout by the artist.

A) FOLDER WITH A SIZE OF 245 x 165 MM

1. Miscellaneous drawings with figurines {39 }. 1980-1985 B) FOLDER WITH A SIZE OF 330 x 250 MM

2. House for the elderly {3 }. 1939-1944, 23 graphic works in passepartout and 15 drawings without passepartout

C) FOLDERS WITH A SIZE OF 375 x 245 MM

3. First models, note-book, Lepence-Visegrdd, 1937summer { I }. This folder contains only the copybook entitled Lepence-Visgerad. The "first models"

referred to in the title are identical to the first items of the listing drawings in sketchbooks.

4. Academy, evening croquis (at Gyula Pap) {2 }. 1945, drawings in pencil 5. AlsoerddsorSimon and Elza together and individually (the artist's parents)

{4 }, Winter, 1945-1946,16 drawings

6. Simon and Elza together and individually {3 4 }. Winter, 1945-1946, 20 drawings

7. Alsoerddsor, not self-portraits {5 }. Winter, 1945-1946,23 drawings and 1 pastel portrait that is not a self-portrait

8. Railway station, Klauzal square, children's home {8 }. 1938, 1942, 195 drawings without passepartout

9. Drawings {1 2 }. 1945-1947, 39 drawings

10. Drawings from the Ghetto {3 1 }. 1944, 35 drawings from the Budapest ghetto and 12 drawings from a storage place for stones

11. Masks and figurines {33 }. 1980-1985, 27 colour pencil drawings on masks and colour patterns in pencil, crayon and water paint

12. Selection of the best small drawings {54 }. 1947-1949,21 pencil drawings 13. Joyce illustrations, at the beginning wicked and pretending birds {7 }.

1980-1984

14. Miscellaneous figurines {10 }. 1980-1984

15. Filler utca on mother mainly in black ink {3 5 }. Contrary to what is written on the folder, it contains three copybooks, into which the artist glued her drawings: I.) The winter o f 1944-1945 at Alsoerddsor, 1945-1946 Filler utca, 42 drawings] II.) 1946-1947 Filler utca, 17 drawings] III.) Winter, 1945-1946, 42 drawings

16. Small figurine drawings, 1975-1980 {9 }. 1980-1985. These small figu­

rines and preliminary sketches were created between 1980 and 1985, and they could have provided the starting idea for an oil painting.

17. Preliminary sketches to be used for paintings {1 1 }. This folder contains the preliminary sketches of those paintings, which, though selected for future paintings, could no longer be finished as paintings by Ilka Gedo.

The preliminary sketch was divided into smaller parts with the help of a grid. The preliminary sketch often also contains the colours, indicating

that the whole colour world of the given painting flashed through the artist's mind before she started work on the painting.

18. Preliminary sketches that have been used for painting {6}. The preliminary sketches of finished paintings from 1975-1985.

19. Drawings in black ink{37}. 1946,1947, the folder contains a sketchbook with 24 drawings in black. As the upper edge of the paper is perforated it may be removed from the sketchbook. On top of the stack holding the perforated pages of the sketchbook the artist has written in her own hand:

The winter of 1946-1947. The folder also contains a drawing in passe­

partout that was originally torn out of a sketchbook.