Fond of Ilka Gedő

Ilka Gedő (1921–1985), painter and graphic artist, an outstanding figure in Hungarian art in the 20th-century, who also gained significant international recognition. The fond contains the artist's complete manuscript legacy, 293 numbered manuscript notebooks, which can be divided into two main groups. Notebooks 1–128 document the creation of oil paintings in diary form. The remaining notebooks mainly contain notes on art history and color theory, translations, and diaries. The notebooks are supplemented by 191 letters. The detailed contents of the manuscript legacy are listed in Hungarian and English in Appendices 2 and 3.

The fond of Ilka Gedő is preserved by the Museum of Fine Arts – Central European Art History Research Institute (KEMKI) Archive and Documentation Center (ADK) under the inventory number 21466-2021.

The life of Ilka Gedő

• 1921 – Ilka Gedő was born on May 26, 1921, in Budapest. Her father, Simon Gedő, was a Hungarian-German teacher at the Jewish Grammar School in Budapest, and her mother, Erzsébet Weiszkopf, was a clerk.
• 1939 – In autumn, Ilka Gedő visited the free school of Tibor Gallé.
• 1940 – She participated in the second exhibition of OMIKE (National Hungarian Jewish Cultural Association).
• 1939-42 – She worked as an apprentice of a family friend, the painter, Viktor Erdei.
• 1942 – She participated in the exhibition titled Freedom and the People organized by the Group of Socialist Painters, which was closed by the authorities a few days after its opening.
• 1942–43 – She visited the free school of István Örkényi Strasser.
• 1943 – She participated in the fifth exhibition of OMIKE at the Hungarian Jewish Museum.
• 1944 – She created her ghetto drawings series in the Budapest Ghetto.
• 1945 – In autumn, she gained admittance and enrolled in the Academy of Fine Arts as a full-time student. Six months later, however, she discontinued her studies due to family issues, she drew at the free school of Gyula Pap, the Hungarian artist who had previously studied at the Bauhaus.
• 1946 – She got married to the biochemist, Endre Bíró.
• 1947 – She participated in the Second Free National Exhibition of the Free Organization of Hungarian Artists. Dániel, her first child was born.
• 1949 – She stopped her artistic activities, which she resumed 16 years later.
• 1950 – Her interests turned to the philosophy of art and art history. She translated extensive passages from Goethe’s theory of colour.
• 1953 – Dávid, her second child was born.
• 1962 – The Hungarian National Gallery purchased one of her drawings.
• 1965 – Gedő presented a selection of her drawings from the period between 1945 and 1949 within the framework of a studio exhibition. Her second artistic period began. The artistic process consists of three closely related components: the creation of colour samples, the initial drawing, and the diary recording the creation of all the paintings.
• 1969-1970 – She spent a year in Paris with her husband, but without her children. The Galerie Lambert showcased two of her paintings as part of a group exhibition.
• 1974 – She was admitted to the Fine Arts Section of the Hungarian Fund of Art.
• 1980 – She had a retrospective exhibition in the King St. Stephen’s Museum, Székesfehérvár.
• 1982 – Exhibition at the Dorottya Utca Gallery in Budapest. The Hungarian National Gallery purchased two of her paintings.
• 1985 – She died on 19 June in Budapest, a few months before her recognition abroad. The venue for her breakthrough was Glasgow, where the Compass Gallery exhibited her paintings and drawings in 1985. (The British press, including the Glasgow Herald, The Scotsman, Financial Times, The Times, Daily Telegraph, The Observer, and The Guardian wrote of Ilka Gedő’s work in high praise.)
• This was followed by a retrospective exhibition between 1989 and 1990 at the Third Eye Centre (the present day CCA: Centre for Contemporary Arts) in Glasgow.

Digitised Catalogue of Gedő’s Complete Works: 

https://mek.oszk.hu/kiallitas/gedo_ilka/

Based on her digitized oeuvre catalogue it can be stated that the number of drawings in the folders exceeds three thousand, and the number of juvenilia drawings is around 1700. The number of drawings preserved in the public collections is 422. The number of drawings produced between 1944 and 1949 is 740. Ilka Gedő organized her drawings into folders, and she titled each folder herself. Each drawing can be clearly identified by the folder number and serial number within the folder that is assigned to the given drawing. The number of paintings is 152. This number was modified, since three completely destroyed paintings from the year 1948 were found and their restoration was completed in 2022. 

Ilka Gedő’s works preserved in the public collections

Oil paintings:

• Museum of Fine Arts – Hungarian National Gallery: 8 paintings
• King St. Stephen’s Museum, Székesfehérvár: 2 paintings

Graphic art (19 public collections):

• Museum of Fine Arts – Hungarian National Gallery: 77 drawings
• Hungarian Jewish Museum: 12 drawings
• King St. Stephen Museum: 8 drawings
• Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), New York: 7 drawings
• Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York: 3 drawings
• The Jewish Museum, New York: 3 drawings
• Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland: 3 drawings
• AKG Art Museum, Buffalo, New York State: 3 drawings
• The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, Washington, DC: 19 drawings
• British Museum, London: 15 drawings
• Museum of Fine Arts, Houston (MFAH): 30 drawings
• The Yad Vashem Art Museum, Jerusalem: 144 drawings
• The Israel Museum: 6 drawings
• The Kupferstichkabinett, Berlin: 8 drawings
• The Museum Kunstpalast, Düsseldorf: 8 drawings
• Albertina, Vienna: 15 drawings
• Herzog Anton Ulrich Museum, Braunschweig: 21 drawings
• Städel Museum, Frankfurt am Main: 20 drawings
• Berliner Akademie der Künste, Art Collection: 31 drawings

Solo exhibitions

• 1965: Studio exhibition
• 1980: The Exhibition of the Painter, Ilka Gedő, King St. Stephen’s Museum, Székesfehérvár
• 1982: Ilka Gedő, the Dorottya Utca exhibition hall of the Palace of Exhibitions
• 1985: Ilka Gedő (1921-–1985), Artists’ Colony Gallery, Szentendre
• 1985: Ilka Gedő (1921–1985) Retrospective Memorial Exhibition of Drawings and Paintings (Ilka Gedő (1921–1985), Compass Gallery, Glasgow
• 1987: The Exhibition of the Painter, Ilka Gedő (1921–1985), Palace of Art, Budapest
• 1989: The Drawings of the Painter, Ilka Gedő, Gallery of Szombathely
• 1989–1990: Ilka Gedő: Paintings, Pastels, Drawings, 1932–1985, Third Eye Centre, Glasgow
• 1994: Ilka Gedő (1921–1985), Janos Gat Gallery, New York
• 1995: Ilka Gedő (1921–1985) Drawings and Pastels, Shepherd Gallery, New York
• 2001: The Drawings of Ilka Gedő between 1948 and1949, Budapest Municipality Picture Gallery – Museum Kiscell
• 2003: Ilka Gedő, Raiffeisen Gallery, Budapest
• 2004-2005: The Exhibition of the Painter, Ilka Gedő (1921-1985), Hungarian National Gallery
• 2006: „Weint bittere Tränen in den Teig!“ Ausstellung von Ilka Gedő (1921- 1985 (Her Tears Fall Into the Dough—The Exhibition of Ilka Gedő (1921–19859), Collegium Hungaricum, Berlin
• 2013: Ilka Gedő, the foyer of the National Theatre
• 2021: “…Half Picture, Half Veil…” the graphics of Ilka Gedő (1921–1985), Museum of Fine Arts – Hungarian National Gallery

Group exhibitions: Appendix 1

In addition to the original manuscripts, the following can be found in Ilka Gedő’s fond within the KEMKI ADK:

• Digitization of the entire manuscript legacy (scanning: Memorial Rescue Ltd., Budapest, on behalf of B. D. )
• Digitization of all works of Ilka Gedő (the scanning of the graphics is the work of Dávid Bíró; the scanning of the Table Series was done by Pigmenta Art Lab, on behalf of B. D. Photos of the paintings: László Lugosi Lugó)
• Dávid Bíró: The Art of Ilka Gedő as Reflected in Her Writings, Notes and Other Documents (p. 707)
• Dávid Bíró: Die Kunst von Ilka Gedő im Spiegel ihrer Schriften, Notizen und anderer Dokumente (p. 604)
• István Hajdú – Dávid Bíró: The Art of Ilka Gedő. Oeuvre Catalogue and documents, Gondolat Kiadó, Budapest, 2003. ISBN 963-9500-13-5
• István Hajdu – Dávid Bíró:The Art of Ilka Gedő. Oeuvre Catalogue and Documents, Gondolat Kiadó, Budapest, 2003. ISBN 963-9500-14-3
• The Art of Ilka Gedő (1921-1985) Studies by Péter György-Gábor Pataki, Júlia Szabó and F. István Mészáros/ Budapest, Új Művészet Kiadó, 1997
• 64GB Data Traveller pen drive, which contains The Art of Ilka Gedő as Reflected in Her Writings, Notes and Other Documents in the Hungarian original and translated into English, and German, as well as the manuscript of Die Kunst von Ilka Gedő im Spiegel ihrer Schriften, Notizen und anderer Dokumente (pp. 604)
• The catalogues of exhibitions held during Ilka Gedő’s life and after her death (group exhibitions, Appendix 4; solo exhibitions, Appendix 5).
• Oeuvre Cataloguea in Hungarian, prepared by B. D. (Appendix 6)
• Oeuvre Catalogue in English, prepared by B. D. (Appendix 7)
• Journal articles on Ilka Gedő (Appendix 8) and magazine articles (Appendix 9)
• British press on Ilka Gedő (Appendix 10)
• Books on Ilka Gedő (Appendix 11). (There are only three books in print, the rest of the books are available at the MEK – Hungarian Electronic Library.)