The History of Hungarian Art in the Twentieth Century

The story of twentieth century Hungarian art begins in 1896, the year of brilliant Millennial festivities that saw the opposition between the academic and modernist viewpoints break into the open. Alongside historicism. the art of the Secession flourished, and a handful of young artists set out for Nagybánya, the first waystation of modern Hungarian painting. The story continues with the avant-garde movements. the Group of Eight and the Activists; the official modernism of the School of Rome. the Post-Impressionist Gresham Circle during the interwar period, 1945 and its aftermath, the Fifties and the doctrines of Socialist Realism, the neo-avant-garde of the Sixties and Seventies, the political turnabout of 1989, and art after Post-Modernism. In addition to being a comprehensive survey of this centurys Hungarian art, this volume is the first to provide an account of the period from 1945 to our days, an account that is an independent, professional re-evaluation of the past fifty years, free of political pressures and censorship as well as of the various strategies formerly employed to evade them. Unlike earlier texts on Hungarian art history that emphasized so-called -progressive" tendencies, the authors here offer a more nuanced picture, with a balanced treatment of diverse movements and trends. The account of the past thirty years is a first of its kind: until now there has been no comprehensive monograph on this subject. The authors had to use new viewpoints to examine this period, and they made every effort to introduce the constantly evolving context and institutions of recent art - exhibitions. galleries. periodicals -as well as works by the youngest artists. Ten years have passed since the political changes of 1989. Since then the world has changed, as did art, but so did the outlook of art history. The end of the century has brought home the timeliness of a lively, authoritative history of 20th century Hungarian art - a summation with a new outlook accessible to the general public. The freshness of approach is guaranteed by the personalities of the authors. who are young scholars, museum specialists and curators, active participants in contemporary art. Gábor Andrási (b. 1954) is director of the Társaskör Gallery of Óbuda, Gábor Pataki (b. 1955) is adjunct director of the Art History Institute of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences and editor of the art magazine Új Művészet (New Art), György Szücs (b. 1960) is secretary for research at the Hungarian National Gallery and curator of its Department of Painting. while András Zwickl (b. 1964) is curator of the Hungarian National Gallery and adjunct professor at the Hungarian Academy of Applied Arts.

Mutass kevesebbet