Kassák - Bildarchitektur 1923/1966 Mappe Carl Laszlo

LAJOS KASSÁK - IMAGE ARCHITECTURE

Very rare and excellently preserved linocut by Lajos Kassák from the Panderma Mappe Edition by Carl Laszlo. The single linocut (of originally 10 linocuts) is on paper (25 cm x 19 cm) and signed below the motif with the artist’s stamp. The edition appeared in 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 available. This is illustratively shown here 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 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 edition by Kassák signed with the “artist’s stamp.” It appeared shortly before his death (in Budapest 1967). Currently, two sheets from the folder were exhibited at the Israel Museum, Jerusalem. A complete folder is located in the Kassák Múzeum Budapest.

With the support of Vasarely, exhibitions took place in 1960 and 1963 at the 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 folder with 10 linocuts in Switzerland in a edition of 100 in 1964, because the Hungarian socialist government did not permit production. In 1965 the folder appeared again with an additional color screen print. And a year before Kassák’s death, Laszlo published the last folder with 10 linocuts, from which the sheet on auction originates.

Kassák signed here for the first time with his artist’s stamp, which presumably happened due to age. Thus these linocuts are indeed the last and only (!) sheets of an edition Kassák signed with a stamp. This circumstance is very important for 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, theorist of the avant-garde 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-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 regarded as one of the most important collectors, connoisseurs and promoters of modern (especially Hungarian) art after 1945.

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