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ORSZÁG, Lili

Painter
(Ungvár [Užhorod, CSZ],8^th, August 1926 – Budapest, 1^st October, 1978)

1945–1950: College of Fine Arts, Budapest, masters: István Szönyi, Róbert Berény, and Lajos Szentiványi. Her early works are primarily aquarelles inspired by Szőnyi (e.g.: Baromfiudvar /Fowl yard/ (1948), Falusi Temető /Village cemetery/ (1949)). Between 1950 and 1954 then from 1960 up until her death she was the designer of the Állami Báb Szinház /Governmental Puppet Theatre/, where she prepared a large number of designs for both puppets and clothing. This is where she became acquainted with the artists of the Európai iskola group, that is Dezső Korniss, József Jakovits, Anna Márkus and in 1953 Endre Bálint, whom she considered her master. Between 1952 and 1957, under the influence of Magritte and Chirico, she painted surrealist paintings (e.g.: Kislány fal előtt [Small girl in front of a wall], 1955, Nő fal előtt [Woman in front of a wall], 1956). Ország prepared a number of paper collages as pre-studies to these works. She utilized this method throughout her life-work. At the influence of her travels to Bulgaria between 1957 and 1959 she painted a few Icon paintings (Bizánci ikon [Icon of Byzantine], 1958). The picturing of Pátzay moved more and more towards the imagery typical of Lajos Vajda and his group, which, with their transcendental radiation, lead her from her realistic surrealist portrayal mode, with the preservation of her theoretical standpoint towards a strictly constructive spaced world, of which cityscapes, base drawings, and city walls constituted the main themes. In these works of hers the immortalizing of memories of the past, as mementos of ancient cities, was both conscious and unambiguous (Jeruzsálem fala [The wall of Jerusalem], 1966; Persepolis, 1965; Requiem hét táblán elpusztult városok és emberek emlékére /Requiem on seven tables in remembrance of the destroyed cities and people/, 1963). Following her trip to Prague in 1962, inspired by the tombstones of the Jewish cemetery, stylized Hebrew letters became central motifs of her works, which on the stones found in Ország’s images, washed and worn by time, appear at times with sharp-cut outlines, other times with finely detailed plasticity, and hardly noticeable dimness (e.g.: Exodus, 1963; Írás a falon /Writting on the wall/, 1967; Ima a halottakért /Payer for the dead/, 1967). Between 1968 and 1974 she traveled to Napoli and Pompei a number of times, where she found a myth, which stood very close to her own painting. She prepared her summarization main work, composed of 48 table boards, entitled Labirintus /Labyrinth/, which through the utilization of her previously developed paining techniques and motifs portrays the present day experiencing of the ancient myths,as well as the timelessness of history and art. (Kék tükrök háza I. /House of Blue Mirrors I./, 1974; Ikarosz, 1974; Várakozók /Those waiting/, 1977; Fekete kép ősi jellel I. /Black Image with Ancient Sign I./, 1978).