In their editorial Kultura.hu have remembered the 120th anniversary of the birth of one of Hungary’s best loved artists. Margit Kovács, Kossuth Prize-winning ceramist and sculptor, was born in Győr on 30 November 1902.
As a little girl, she used to draw a lot and watched the work of the master stove-maker who lived in her street and taught her how to use clay, the disc and the kiln. After graduation she was able to begin her art studies in Budapest in 1924. She studied porcelain painting at the School of Applied Arts, before traveling to Vienna in 1926, where she learned the basics of ceramics from Hertha Bucher.
Photo: Facebook Kovács Margit Kerámiamúzeum
In 1928-29, she studied sculpture with Karl Killer and ceramics with Adalbert Niemayer at the State School of Applied Arts in Munich, and in 1932 she took a short study trip to Copenhagen and worked at the French porcelain factory in Sevres.
Her works were first exhibited at the Tamás Gallery in 1928 and immediately attracted critical attention. From then on, she exhibited her works in Paris, Brussels, the Venice Biennale, Rome and Turin, until her first collective exhibition in 1935.
In the 1930s, biblical themes appeared in her work, to which she remained faithful throughout his life. At the same time, she was increasingly attracted to folk art. The largest group of her works are ceramics and reliefs in glossy glazes. Her first important work was made in 1931 for the Vienna Tourist Office in Budapest. Her ceramic figure of the Hungarian pavilion at the 1937 Paris World Exhibition was awarded the Diplome d’honneur.
Photo: Facebook Kovács Margit Kerámiamúzeum
In the 1950s, during the communist dictatorship, religious themes were forced to take a back seat, she mainly created ceramics with a variety of genre themes representing the folk and peasant world. Eventually she returned to biblical themes, figures from Greek mythology, archaic tales and mythology.
In 1948 she was one of the first to receive the Hungary’s top Kossuth Prize, later she was elected honorary citizen of Szentendre in 1974. Margit Kovács fell in love with Szentendre in the 1960s, and in the last years of her life she spent every summer there. The house where she worked was converted into a museum in 1973. Margit Kovács died on 4 June 1977 in Budapest.
Via Kultura.hu, featured photo: Facebook Kovács Margit Kerámiamúzeum