Kassák - Bildarchitektur 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 (of originally 10 linocuts) is on paper (30 cm x 29.3 cm) and bears the artist’s stamp below the motif. The edition was issued with 100 or 150 copies (GA 120 Ex.) by the Panderma Verlag Carl Laszlo, Basel. The numbering was on the original portfolio, which is no longer available. This is shown here exemplarily as an example, but not part of the auction. The linocut was purchased by the seller from the estate of Carl Laszlo. Further individual sheets from the portfolio are being offered in parallel.

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

The motif is from 1924 and was reissued in 1966 in the only edition signed by Kassák with a “artist’s stamp.” It appeared shortly before his death (in Budapest, 1967). Currently, two sheets from the portfolio (including this work) were exhibited at the Israel Museum, Jerusalem. A complete portfolio 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 with illegally smuggled Hungarian signatures on stickers, published the first portfolio of 10 linocuts in Switzerland in 1964 in a edition of 100, because the Hungarian socialist government did not approve production. In 1965 the portfolio appeared once more with an additional color screen print. And a year before Kassák’s death, Laszlo issued the last portfolio of 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. This makes these linocuts actually the last and only (!) sheets of an edition that Kassák signed with a stamp. This circumstance is very important for the valuation, 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, avant-garde theorist, and occasional translator.
He is regarded as the “primus inter pares” (Carl Laszlo 1966) of significant art styles of European modernism (Constructivism, Futurism, Bauhaus, De Stijl, Abstraction-Creation).

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 regarded as one of the most important collectors, connoisseurs, and promoters of modern (especially Hungarian) art after 1945.

SOURCES
Kassák Werkverzeichnis Magyar Nemzeti Galéria/Budapest
Kassák Múzeum Budapest,
home is where my art is - a visit to Carl Laszlo and the (Hungarian) avant-garde (Ferenc Kréti 2025),
Ungarische Avantgarde, Galerie Kunze,
among others.