Commissioned Memory
György Konecsni (1908–1970)Liberation (A Man, a Woman, their Child, and the Dove of Peace), 1965
Savaria Museum – Szombathely Gallery
György Konecsni (1908–1970)Liberation (A Man, a Woman, their Child, and the Dove of Peace), detail, 1965
Savaria Museum – Szombathely Gallery
György Konecsni (1908–1970)Liberation (A Man, a Woman, their Child, and the Dove of Peace), detail, 1965
Savaria Museum – Szombathely Gallery
György Konecsni (1908–1970)Sketch for Liberation (A Man, a Woman, their Child, and the Dove of Peace), 1965
November Gallery
1965 | Abstraction
In Hungary during the mid-1960s, abstract representation was still a forbidden, or at most tolerated phenomenon—at least in the field of fine arts, in contrast with the less controlled domain of applied arts. It is therefore surprising that in the 1965 Auschwitz exhibition, which served to represent the Hungarian state abroad, abstract art was the starting point for several works.
Among the works by János Kass in the room on the left, the form in the background of the Massacre in Novi Sad is, in fact, a bold, abstract sculpture. On his painting, which at first glance appears to be completely abstract, and most probably thematizes the Anti-Jewish Laws, a dense grid structure covers the almost unrecognizable human figure depicted on the lower layer.
The main theme of the 1965 exhibition was antifascism, not the memory of the Holocaust. This is illustrated by the fact that the largest, and therefore most emphatic work had nothing to do with Auschwitz. György Konecsni’s idyll, reminiscent of Manet’s The Luncheon on the Grass, shows a family; its subject matter, due to the depicted dove of peace, can best be described as Liberation.
In fact, the artist was interested not in the figurative depiction, but rather in the abstract expressionist background dripped with black enamel paint on a colored surface. This can be observed closely in the two panels here, removed from the composition, which could stand as autonomous, abstract works of art. The fact that the subject of the commission was only a pretext for the artist is confirmed by the sketch of the painting: the artist has added the figurative composition with a different technique, as a separate layer, almost like a foreign body, on the collaged background.