Kassák - Bildarchitektur 1923/1966 Mappe Carl Laszlo

LAJOS KASSÁK - BILDARCHITEKTUR

In the auction there is a very rare and excellently preserved linocut by Lajos Kassák from the Panderma map edition by Carl Laszlo. The single linocut (originally from 10 linocuts) is on paper (30 cm x 29.3 cm) and below the motif signed with the artist's stamp. The edition appeared with 100 or 150 copies (GA 120 Ex.) in the Panderma Verlag Carl Laszlo, Basel. The numbering was on the original folder, which is no longer present. This is shown here exemplarily as an example, but not part of the auction. The linocut was acquired by the seller from the estate of Carl Laszlo. Further individual sheets from the folder are offered in parallel.

It was never framed. There are age-appropriate minor edge flaws and occasional light impressions as storage traces on the print, which is over 50 years old.

The motif dates from 1924 and was reissued in 1966 in the only Kassák edition signed with a “artist’s stamp.” It appeared shortly before his death (in Budapest 1967). Currently, two sheets from the folder (including this work) were exhibited at the Israel Museum, Jerusalem. A complete folder is located in the Kassák Museum Budapest.

With the support of Vasarely, exhibitions took place in 1960 and 1963 at Galerie René Denise in Paris. Vasarely introduced Kassák there to the art enthusiast and publisher Carl Laszlo, who, initially illicitly smuggled signatures on stickers from Hungary, published the first folder with 10 linocuts in Switzerland in 1964 in a edition of 100, because the Hungarian socialist government did not permit production. In 1965 the folder appeared once more with an accompanying color screen print. And a year before Kassák’s death, Laszlo issued the last folder with 10 linocuts, from which the sheet in the auction originates.

Kassák signed here for the first time with his artist’s stamp, which presumably happened due to age. Thus these linocuts are actually the last and only (!) sheets of an edition that Kassák signed with a stamp. This circumstance is very important for authentication of value, because after his death the stamp was no longer used.

BIOGRAPHIES
Lajos Kassák (March 21, 1887 – July 22, 1967) was a Hungarian poet, writer, painter, typographer, sculptor, essayist, editor, theorist of the avant-garde, and occasional translator.
He is regarded as the “primus inter pares” (Carl Laszlo 1966) of significant art movements of European modernism (Constructivism, Futurism, Bauhaus, De Stijl, Abstraction-Création).

Carl Laszlo/Edition Panderma: Carl Laszlo (Hungarian László Károly; July 16, 1923 in Pécs; died November 8, 2013 in Basel) was a Hungarian-Swiss art dealer, collector, psychoanalyst, and author. He is considered one of the most important collectors, connoisseurs, and patrons of modern (in particular Hungarian) art after 1945.

SOURCES
Kassák Works Catalogue Magyar Nemzeti Galéria/Budapest
Kassák Museum Budapest
home is where my art is - a visit to Carl Laszlo and the (Hungarian) Avant-Garde (Ferenc Kréti 2025)
Hungarian Avant-Garde, Galerie Kunze
among others