Search Results: Hungary from Michael Fagan Fine Art & Rare Books

Folio 30 x 24 cm, wrappers 12 numbers in 6 issues, year 1, and 4 numbers in 2 issues, year 2, 1947-48 (all published). Original wrappers bound in cloth. Lajos Kassák made an ambitious effort to present a world-class art journal from Budapest under the banner of the Hungarian Council of the Arts, launching it in January 1947. Championing the postwar avant-garde visual art emerging both in Hungary and Western Europe, it had an internationalist approach and attempted to avoid political polarization in contrast to his prewar efforts with MA, DOKUMENTUM, and MUNKA. With his fellow literary associates (Tibor Déry, Sándor Weöres, Ernö Kállai, etc) the intent was to renew communications with the art capitals of Western Europe and the USA and generate open currents of exchange, still under the banner of a socialist humanism but looking westward. Like Ma and Dokumentum, the journal looked at the international art scene as well as the developments in Hungary. The new art presented in these pages,… Read More

Quarto 24x16.2 cm., wrappers, 385 (ii)pp. The first edition of a major biography of Endre Ady (1877-1919) with many illlustrations. The contemporary photos of Paris are by André Kertész, commissioned by the author of this biography and a devoted aficionado of Ady himself. Kertész also designed the book. Includes the famous Kertész photo of Ady's favorite café table. Most of the earlier photos are by Aladár Székely (1870-1940), also a close friend of Ady's noted for his early 20th century portraits. Hungarian text throughout. As for the subject, Endre Ady (1877-1919) was the poet who gave birth to a 20th-century voice for Hungarian identity and exerted an overwhelming influence on Hungarian letters up to WWI. He was born into a Transylvanian Calvinist town and family, and tormented throughout life by an uninhibited passion for sensual experience and freedom against a strict conscience and authority. At the same time he was committed to profoundly infusing Hungarian life and culture with a… Read More

Octavo 19x12.5 cm., original wrappers, 72pp. Cover design by Lajos Gulácsy. Gulácsy (1882-1932) was an important symbolist visionary painter seen as an important link from Romanticism to modernism in Hungarian art.. Kassák's play is early, just before the journal A Tett was launched which became a centerpiece of anti-war expression. Kassák (1887-1967) is the predominant figure of the Hungarian avant-garde, who launched the most important journals of the day. In addition to providing a platform for the avant-garde he spearheaded the notion of social activism and political engagement as an inseparable part of the creative process He was a prolific novelist and poet, and later developed into an original artist. Worldcat locates two holdings in North America (Columbia, UC Berkeley). Very good+, an uncut copy.

Octavo 16.5x10cm., original wrappers, 64pp. First and only edition. Cover design and twelve drawings by Lajos Gulácsy. Arthur Keleti (Artur Rosenburg, 1889-1969) was a Hungarian poet and translator; he was also a master bookmaker. In 1912 he met Lajos Gulácsy who encouraged him to publish his first book of poetry after which they went to Italy. This trip had a major impact for both of them in their work. Keleti went on to release poetry, plays and operas, and his books are often collaborative with artists in bibliophile editions. Gulácsy (1882-1932) was a unique Pre-Raphaelite and Symbolist visionary and an important part of Hungarian Secessionism whose late works point to surrealism. He had a nervous breakdown in the First World War which led to mental illness and was confined to institutions after 1919. Uncommon, with copies of this work rarely on the market. Institutional holdings in UTL, UCB, BL worldwide.

(Meeting Cinderella. New novelettes by Béla Révész with drawings by Lajos Kozma). Folio 31 x 22.5 cm, two vols.,decorated 1-2 calf, 158, 72pp. Book cover, interior decorations and page design by Lajos Kozma. Hungary, as the theoretical half of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, began to participate vigorously in the Viennese secessionist movement by 1900 with distinctive achievements in the decorative arts, architecture and design. Produced in the peak of the era, this is a fine production with the particular flavor of the movement that sets Hungarian secessionism apart. Volume I provides the text with uncials by Kozma and the second volume consists of thirty full-page zincographs by him, plus an additional two as frontispieces for each volume. Kozma (1884-1948) first acquired fame for his visual gifts as a book artist before his renowned achievements as an advanced architect and designer of the 20s through the 40s. These images, while clearly indebted to Klimt, are the work of an original talent. Béla… Read More