Social unsociability

Piroska Szántó (1913-1998), even if she appeared in collected or group exhibitions of women’s art, she almost disappeared from the exhibition spaces from the 2000s. Her apartment with István Vas has not been open to the public for some time. The exhibition Social unsociability celebrates her, commemorating the centenary of her birth, a few months late.

Selected from a family collection, we present his varied works, his detailed floral compositions illuminating the black background, his designs for the Cantata Profana tapestry, his embracing nudes celebrating eternal love (Vas István), his worn Christs of the Roadside Crosses and, above all, two early paintings of Szentendre (1938), unknown to the public.

From a very young age, Piroska Szántó, who worked with the Group of Socialist Artists, from 1937 with the community of artists who regarded Lajos Vajda as their master at the Haluska farm in Szentendre, and then for three years as a member of the European School, which gained ground in the 1950s, found herself in a vacuum. Although she was able to show herself from time to time from 1957 onwards, she worked in seclusion, making herself at home in the literary world through her husband. Her career, which began in the vicinity of influential trends and artists, was seemingly uninterrupted, but in fact developed in a search for uncertainty. His works, with their elegant sensuality, still appeal to visitors today.