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Contents

1. Instead of a Lengthy Preface
2. Introduction (Péter György-Gábor Pataki-Júlia Szabó-Endre Bíró)
3. Gedő's Letters to Her Parents (1936-1943)
4. Anna Lesznai's Letter to Ilka Gedő, 1939
5. Róbert Berény's Advice to Ilka Gedő (June 12, 1939)
6. Letter of Recommendation by Gusztáv Végh, August 31, 1939
7. Letter by Olga Kovács Székely, a Hungarian painter living in Paris, February 7, 1939
8. Milán Füst's Letter to Ilka Gedő, May 23, 1943
9. Gedő's Letter to Milán Füst June 30, 1943
10. István Örkényi-Strasser on Ilka Gedő, 1942
11. A Letter from Hódmezővásárhely, 1944
12. My Life, Autobiographical Report from 1951, Excerpts
13. Letter to Ernő Kállai and Ernő Kállai's Response, 1949
14. Mándy Stefánia: On the Prehistory of Ilka Gedő's Study on Lajos Vajda
15. Stefánia Mándy: Reflections, November 1954
16. Gedő Ilka's Study on Lajos Vajda, 1954
17. A Draft Letter Written to Lenke Haulisch, 1979
18. Three Letters Written to Ilka Gedő by the Arts Fund, 1971, 1972, 1982
19. Júlia Vajda's Letter to Iván Dévényi on Ilka Gedő, 1974
20. Diary Records Tracing the Making of the Painting Titled Equilibrists, 1977
21. Endre Bálint on Ilka Gedő, 1984
22. Ilka Gedő's Letter to Mikós Szentkuthy, 1984
23. Gedő' letter to Péter Surányi (details)
24. Sándor Lukácsy's Exhibition Opening Speech, 1980
25. Ilka Gedő about the Background of Her Study on Lajos Vajda , a Draft Letter from 1983
26. László Beke's Letter Written to Ilka Gedő, 1980
27. Gedő Requests the Use of an Atelier at the Arts Colony of Szentendre, 1985
28. Ibolya Ury's Opening Speech, at the Artist's Posthumous Exhibition, 1985
29. Endre Bíró: Ilka Gedő's Studio, As It Was Left at the Time of Her Death, 1985
30. Ágnes Gyetvai: The Art of Ilka Gedő
31. Endre Bíró: The Group of Intellectuals Around Lajos Szabó Lajos, 1985
32. Endre Bíró: Recollections of Ilka Gedő's Artitic Career, 1985
33. Júlia Szabó: Exhibition Opening Speech at the Budapest Arts Hall, 1987
34. György Spiró's Exhibition Opening Speech at the Budapest Arts Hall, May 1987
35. Péter György - Gábor Pataki: Official Arts Policies in Hungary Between 1945-1988
36. Júlia Szabó: The Drawings of Ilka Gedő, 1989
37. The Ganz Factory Series
38. Árpád Göncz: The Pictures of an Exhibition
39. János Frank on Ilka Gedő, 1996
40. Júlia Szabó On the Artistic Development of Ilka Gedő, 1997
41. Júlia Szabó on the Artist's Ghetto Drawings, 1997
42. Júlia Szabó on the Self-Portrait Series (1944-49), 1997
43. Maurice Tempelsman's Three Letters about Ilka Gedő
44. Márta Kovalovszky on Ilka Gedő's Exhibition, 1989
45. Gyula Rózsa: The Price Paid for Creating an Oeuvre, 2004
46. Ágnes Horváth: The Oeuvre as an Excuse
47. Dávid Bíró: The Price Paid for Creating an Oeuvre or the Oeuvre as an Excuse, 2005
48. Géza Perneczky: A Colourful Album for Ilka Gedő
49. Géza Perneczky: The Folder of Drawings, 2007
50. Júlia Szabó's Exhibition Speech at the Museum Kiscell, 2001
51. Kriszta Dékei: Can a Female Artist be a Woman, and the Other Way Round?, 2003
52. Ursula Prinz's Exhibition Opening at the Collegium Hungaricum Berlin, 2006

APPENDIX
Solo Exhibitions
Group Exhibitions (a selection)
The Complete List of Oil Paintings
Oil Paintings in Public Collections (a detailed list)
  1. Hungarian National Gallery, Budapest
  2. King St Stephen Museum of Székesfehérvár
  1. Works on Paper at the Hungarian National Gallery
  2. King St. Stephen's Museum, Székesfehérvár, Hungary
  3. Works on Paper at the Department of Prints and Drawings of the British Museum
  4. Works on Paper at the Israel Museum, Jerusalem
  5. Works on Paper at the Hungarian Jewish Museum
  6. Ilka Gedő's Works on Paper at Berlin Kupferstichkabinett
  7. Works on Paper at the Museum Kunstpalast, Düsseldorf
  8. The Jewish Museum, New York
  9. Works on Paper at the Yad Vashem Art Museum, Jerusalem
  10. Graphic Arts Collection of the Albertina
  11. Ilka Gedő's Works on Paper at the Museum of Fine Arts Houston (MFAH)
  12. Works on Paper at Albright-Knox Art Gallery, Buffalo, New York State
  13. Works on Paper at the Metropolitan Museum
  14. Works on Paper in the Herzog Anton Ulrich Museum, Braunschweig, Germany
  15. The Museum of Modern Art, New York, Department of Drawings and Prints
  16. Städel Museum, Frankfurt am Main
Chronology
List of Literature
  Writings of Ilka Gedő
  Presence on the Internet
  Catalogues
  Group Exhibition Catalogues
  Books
  Journal Articles
  Newspaper Articles
Ilka Gedő's Manuscripts
  I. Diary Notes Related to the Making of Oil Paintings
  II. Note-Books, Translations, Diaries and Colour Theory Notes
Gedő's Oil Paints
Books on Art History in Ilka Gedő's Library
Important Names with Short Bios
Ganz Factory
The Table Series
Colour Patterns
The Self-Portraits (A Selection)
  1. Juvenilia Self-Portraits
  2. Self-Portraits in the Budapest Ghetto, 1944
  3. Confronting the Traumas of the War
  4. The Artist Depicts Her Dignity
  5. The Artist at Work
  6. Nude Self-Portraits
  7. In Love
  8. Self-Portraits in Pregnancy
  9. The Last Two Self-Portraits of the First Artistic Period
  10. Self-Portrait Oil Paintings
Complete Oil Paintings

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Preface

From László Beke's Letter Written to Gedő (August 10, 1980)

"I believe it is utterly pointless to draw any parallels between your art and the «contemporary» trends, because your art could have been born any time between 1860 and 2000. It draws its inspirations not from the «outside», but from the «inside», and its coherence and authenticity are derived from the relationship this art has with her creator-and this cannot possibly escape the attention of any of the viewers of these works."

Sándor Lukácsy exhibition opening speech (King St Stephen's Museum of Székesfehérvári, 1980

"Anyone who senses it is worth waiting can wait," wrote the famous Hungarian poet, Endre Ady in one of his late poems. By the time the period of creating beauty arrived in Gedő's life, she had waited a lot." Endre Bálint: Életrajzi törmelékek (Memoire Fragments) Budapest, Magvető Könyvkiadó, 1984, p. 150 & p. 242

"Concerning the colours, it is perhaps Gedő's handling of colour that elevates her to the rank of the best painters: her colour chords are so much original that she stands unparalleled in Hungarian painting. / She does not have well-proven tricks, she is present in all her pictures in terms of both the topic and the colour selection in such a way that she cannot be confused with anyone else, and her style can only be compared to herself even if we suppose that there is some criterion which should be followed by a painter. Her unique approach is reflected by her whole oeuvre."

From Ibolya Ury's Exhibition Opening Speech at Gedő's Memorial Exhibition, June 28, 1985

"Let there be no doubt about it: this exhibition shows the works of an artist who does not depend on anything or anybody outside her internal forces. It is Ilka Gedő's painterly approach that makes her specifically unique and, as a result, her art is unlike anybody else's."

From the Exhibition Opening Speech of György Spiró, Műcsarnok, May of 1987

"A painting can be a lot of things: it can be a document, a fighting field, religious and irreligious symbolism, an ideological exclamation mark, or a gesture as the black square. Least commonly can it be an independent work of art. The twentieth century, at least for me, shows that works of art, no matter which genre they belong to, were not primarily created by persons who regarded themselves to be artists, but by hiding, secretive special people, not having the status of artist. (...) In vain do these people live within the limits of time, whatever they create is timeless and ageless. / The painting oeuvre of Gedő exists in and of itself, it shows the triumph of creative power over time, over the ages and death. Viewing these pictures here together, one has the feeling as if nothing were more natural. / This, however, do I need to say, is the wonder itself."

János Frank: "Ilka Gedő" In: Anita Semjén Anita (ed): Áldozatok és gyilkosok, Victims and Perpetrators, Cultural Exchange Foundation, Budapest, 1996

"Any art historian trying to find the predecessors of Ilka Gedő's art would be in trouble, and justifiably so. He would not be able to find any. Gedő is of her own world that consists of several hundred drawings and 152 paintings."

Géza Perneczky's book review, Holmi , December, 2003, pp. 1629-1630

"I feel that Ilka Gedő's withdrawal was an act that was made within the artistic arena. On reaching a point beyond which the sole path open to her lay in the direction of sterile planning or proliferation of copycats, she turned away and fell silent, because that was the only way she could remain true to herself and to the world of her earlier drawings."

Géza Perneczky: "A rajzmappa" (The Folder of Drawings), shortened text, Holmi, Volume 19, No. 8 August 2007, pp. 1042-1043.

"The avant-garde of the 20th century began, as a matter of fact, when the artist abandoned the safe harbours that had been in existence since the Renaissance, and started to face the dangers that rendered their human and artistic existence fragile. The collection and imitation of the wooden sculptures of African peoples and those of Oceania, the paradox inexplicableness of geometric presentation or adventurous journeys into the subconscious, all these attempts were, in fact, experiments that brought these artists into a near-death condition. This is at least sure in the aesthetic and moral sense, as the society surrounding these artistic attempts regarded these attempts to be absurd and even immoral. When, in due course, some really sinful things did happen, then the artists no longer needed these artificial means of creation. Every-day reality had become so much absurd that its support systems simply collapsed, and on the reflection of every-day phenomena nothingness and death had become visible.

Ilka Gedő came to experience such situations already in her youth. The folders show those men and women, together with Ilka Gedő, to have been in this dangerously fragile situation. What is interesting here is that Ilka Gedő as a graphic artist did not need the isms to create something which makes you hold your breath when viewing her works on paper. In these works on paper no acrobatics is needed, because tension becomes unbearable even without acrobatic tricks. It is enough to open a folder, and one can see this immediately."

Gyula Rózsa's Exhibition Review about Ilka Gedő's retrospective memorial exhibition at the Hungarian National Gallery (Népszabadság, January 29, 2005)

"Ilka Gedő could have been a political painter, or she could have been a painter of the Holocaust. One part of the Hungarian art scene expelled her becuase she was not an abstract painter, while she did not ask for admission from the other group of painters, as she was not a realist painter. The whole of Hungary's art scence forced her into exile. Her oeuvre is independent of art trends and it represents autonomous art. In this region of Europe precious value can only be obtained for a high price."

Exhibition opening speech by art historian Ursula Prinz, deputy-director of the Berlinische Galerie at the Berlin Collegium Hungaricum, 8 March 2006

"Despite all her internal emigration, she has remained part of her world. It is not out of ignorance that she has not joined the common art movements. She ultimately followed what Ernő Kállai had already written to her in his short letter in 1949: "I would advise you to use your eyes and follow your heart. Don't take any notice of the clever know-it-alls and snobs to whom van Gogh is an outdated concept and according to whose opinion you should follow Picasso's abstract art. Ilka Gedő always followed her heart, and she later found her own style and now, even later, her deserved fame."

Péter György - Gábor Pataki: Official Arts Policies in Hungary (1945-1980's), page 179 of this volume

"One must also bear in mind that while in Western Europe discussions centred on issues relating to art that actually existed, in Hungary many decades were wasted on the pointless discussion as to «what art should be like». A too intensive, politically inspired focus on what art should be like had nearly led to the demise of Hungarian art. The fact that this did not happen is to the credit of Ilka Gedő and her fellow artists."

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