Kassák - Bildarchitektur 1923/1966 Mappe Carl Laszlo

Lajos Kassák - Bildarchitektur

A rarer and exceptionally well-preserved linocut by Lajos Kassák from the Panderma Map Edition by Carl Laszlo. The single linocut (originally part of 10 prints) 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 present. It is illustrated here as an example, but not part of the auction. The linocut was acquired by the seller from the estate of Carl Laszlo.

It was never framed. There are only minor age-related, occasional light impressions as storage marks on the print, which is over 50 years old.

The motif dates from 1924 and was reissued in 1966 in Kassák’s only edition signed with a “artist’s stamp.” It appeared shortly before his death (in Budapest 1967). Currently, two sheets from the map were exhibited at the “Israel Museum, Jerusalem.” A complete folder is located at the Kassák Museum in 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 published the first map with 10 linocuts in Switzerland in 1964 in a run of 100, initially smuggling signatures illegally from Hungary, because the Hungarian socialist government did not permit production. In 1965 the folder appeared again, supplemented with a color screen print. And a year before Kassák’s death, Laszlo issued the last folder of 10 linocuts, from which the sheet offered in the auction originates.

Kassák signed here for the first time with his artist’s stamp, which presumably happened due to aging. Thus these linocuts are in fact the last and only (!) sheets of an edition that Kassák signed with a stamp. This circumstance is very important for the appraisal, 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-Création).

Carl Laszlo/Edition Panderma: Carl Laszlo (Hungarian László Károly; July 16, 1923 in Pécs – 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 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.