Hungarian Art History

A szegedi dóm építéstörténetéről szóló kiadványok közül Zombori István történész tollából ismert a legtöbb, amelyet Varga József adalékai tesznek teljessé. Foerk Ernő munkásságával Hadik András művészettörténész foglalkozott legbehatóbban, aki a fogadalmi templom műemléki tudományos dokumentációját is készítette. Jelen tanulmány szerzője a dóm felújítása alkalmából az altemplomban kialakított állandó kiállítás kurátoraként végzett kutatásokat 2013 és 2015 között. A fogadalmi templom építéstörténetéhez számos új információ került napvilágra, a nemrégiben a Magyar Építészeti Múzeum költözése közben fellelt naplóból készült gépirat másolata alapján, ezek adják e tanulmány vázát.

The paper (The Dissertation of Béla Kondor - Scenes from the time of György Dózsa) is a revised version of my defended MA these in 2017. The topic of it is the early event of the form of the myth around Béla Kondor itself and his art and deals with the formation of history and the judgement in its age of the Scenes from the time of György Dózsa etching series which became 'legendary' already in the year of 1956.

Who exactly was Emil Szittya, this figure of the Hungarian and international avant-garde? Writer, poet, sociologist, art critic, art historian, painter? Anarchist, social democrat, liberal, fascist, antifascist, communist? Fraudster, agent provocateur, informant or French resistance fighter? Was he only Hungarian, Jewish, Swabian, German, Swiss or French? Or simply a wanderer of the world? He was all of these. And some of those qualifiers were mere accusations leveled against him, or a way he had of referring to himself. - in French

Study on the sculptor Sándor Bánszky, who joined the Hungarian cubists in Paris in 1912. During the First World War, like many other Hungarian artist, he was interned in France and died there in November 1918. His cubist sculptures are significant works of the era. - In Hungarian.

Апстракт: Миленијумском прославом 1896. године читава Угарска је обележавала хиљадугодишњицу досељавања Мађара на просто-ре Панонске низије. Тим поводом је организована велика национална изложба у Будимпешти, у оквиру које су изложена многобројна дела ликовне уметности. Жупаније и градови из свих делова Краљевине Угарске су слали сликарске композиције, којима су се репрезентовали у престоници, а међу њима се нашла и слободна краљевска варош Вр-шац. Дело Вршачки триптихон је по наруџбини Муниципије извео Паја Јовановић, који je и сам потекао из овог јужнобанатског града. Тро-делни приказ образују најзаступљеније делатности Вршца и околине: у средини је берба грожђа, са леве стране је трговина, а са десне же-тва. Насликане личности, које обављају ове послове, лишене су етнич-ких особености, одевене су у типичну банатску ношњу, коју су носили сви житељи села, осим једног учесника у трговниској размени, који носи грађанско одело. Идеализовани приказ суживота народа у јужној Угарској јесте уметничка конструкција, не само у естетском већ и у значењском погледу. Вешто избегавши креирање историјске слике која нема упориште у националној прошлости Мађара, вршачке власти су се одлучиле за политички неутралну, али ипак идеолошки одређену сли-ку, ако се у обзир узме контекст настанка и излагања дела.

Between 1908 and 1945 Béla Bartók's personal (and musical) influence can be shown on various modern Hungarian artist groups, such as the hungarian Fauves, The Eights, cubists, Kassák and his activist circle, or on the “Szentendre program” of Dezső Korniss and Lajos Vajda. - in hungarian language.

In the first decade of the 20th century, the various avant-garde tendencies exerted their influence in Hungary, too. In reaction to these, János Vaszary, an accomplished painter by 1910, decided to create a new style of painting. He drafted his principles in an article, Florence -  Siena, published in the daily Az Újság, and in the text for his catalogue of his exhibition at the Artists' House in 1912. His ideas were rooted in the trends of his day that rejected naturalism and impressionism, and referred to Cézanne, Gauguin and the Fauves. His theories often corresponded with the ideas he had known from Matisse's essay, The Notes of a Painter (the French original being published in 1908, and its Hungarian translation in 1911). Vaszary envisioned an art he called style-investigating reconstructed art, which would be of lasting value, matching the styles of past periods. He deemed the art cultures of Antiquity, Asia and the Renaissance as normative, calling their simplicity liberating, and regarding their modes of representation as exemplary in their striving to grasp elements that are comprehensive, essential and typical. He was fascinated by the fact that the use of restrained poses could achieve highly expressive and efficient compositions. He felt there was potential for a new Renaissance in due course, and recognized that the cradle of the latest movements was France.
In 1910, he travelled to France, and studied the hand and head positions of Buddha and Shiva statues, Japanese ink drawings, and the concepts of vision in Chinese, Greek, Egyptian and Assyrian art. At the same time, he visited the sites of contemporary art, such as the exhibitions of the Salon des Indépendants, Marquet, the Gallerie Vollard. He made notes on the colouration and image-making techniques of Picasso, Cézanne,  Marquet, Manguin, Van Dongen.
He made several hundred drawings in pencil and ink, differentiating Synthetic Lines from the rest, the former depicted male or female nudes and motion studies. The single- or multi-figure drawings recall characteristic artschool poses and compositional problems. The most beautiful pieces among these female nudes imitate the calligraphic play of lines in Japanese drawings in brush, while some of the male nudes break down a series of movements into phases. Because, in the opinion of Vaszary, the nude and its movement, its rhythm meant continuity with primitive art.
In 1911, Vaszary went on a tour of Italy. He continued his investigations in the public squares, museums and churches of Florence, Siena, San Gimignano. Here he had the opportunity of studying from close the colours of mosaics, faience, majolica, as well as the more gaunt, Byzantine shapes of early Renaissance works of art. He was also inspired by the extravagance of the baroque line, and the sculpture of the quattrocento and the cinquecento. With his newly found world of colour, he painted watercolours of the Madonna, Renaissance figures, multi-figure Arcadian scenes; he also produced landscapes drawing the lessons from his studies of Cézanne and Marquet, and made cover designs suggestive of majolica lustre.
In the meantime, on March 14, 1911, he joined the most progressive Hungarian art association of the time, the Artists' House founded by  Miklós Rózsa. He took part in the various activities of the House, including freeschool art teaching from 1913 and arranging and curating major domestic and foreign exhibitions, selecting their material. It was at the Artists' House that he first presented his new art in 1912. The majority of critics justly compared these works of his with those of the avant-garde group Nyolcak (The Eight). Some put on fastidious airs, while others welcomed his daring, but demanded a more settled, matured art, and this critique was repeatedly voiced in connection to all his shows in the following two years. He summed up his experiments in a handful of major pictures displayed at the 1912 show, namely: Boys Bathing, Balance (Cat. Nos 89, 94), Dance (whereabouts unknown), Decorative Trees, or A Profile (Cat. No. 93). However, he exhibited the masterpiece with which he ended this creative period, the massive canvas entitled Temperate Gestures (The Resurrection of Lazarus, Cat. No. 95J only at the opening of the new building of the Artists' House in  1913. The composition with its several static, stylized, frontally posed figures bears some semblance to Picasso's monumental works from the early years of the century, but is also different in its strongly Byzantine-like style.
In the spring of 1913, Vaszary went to Paris to study the newest work at the Salon des Indépendants, taking a longer detour on the way to see Picasso's Munich exhibition. As a result of what he saw, he decided to follow new artistic ideals, and elaborated his programme in two articles ("Artistic Experiments, Theories", 1913; "The Signs of New Beauty",  1914). He rejected the approach based on the reconstruction of old styles and striving to decorativeness, and emphasized the problems of representing space and time. Under the influence of cubism and futurism, his new, reticent studies of nudes assert a clarified geometry. His multi-figure compositions, most of which are lost [Composition, Balcony), are evocative of tribal art and the works of Picasso,  Modigliani, Brancusi. In a number of gypsum sculptures, he experimented with primitivism [Recumbent, Squatter), however only one has survived (Kneelef), this is his earliest known statue.
As the First World War broke out, he volunteered to be a war correspondent on the front, and thus his avant-garde experiments ended. The stylistic and motif treasury he had accumulated did not come to naught: its elements surfaced from time to time, interspersing and animating his art in the 1920s and 1930s.

A „Barokk. Történelem-Irodalom-Művészet” interdiszciplináris, nemzetközi hatókörű folyóirat, mely 1994 óta félévente jelentkezik új számokkal. A különleges periodika elsősorban kulturtörténeti, irodalomtörténeti, művészeti, zenei és filozófiai problémakörökkel foglalkozik a lengyel, ill. európai barokk kontextusában.

A szélesspektrumú folyóirat szerkesztésében a Varsói Egyetem számos szakának (lengyel nyelv és irodalom, történelem, művészettörténet, könyvtudomány, zenetörténet) kiváló tudósai és elismert specialistái működnek közre.

Az idegennyelvű különszámok sorában, az olasz, német, illetve svéd után a magyar a negyedik. A kötet tíz különböző központot képviselő (elsősorban magyar és lengyel), összesen húsz szerző írásait tartalmazza.

A különszám az ELTE BTK (Középkori es Kora Újkori Magyar Történeti Tanszék) és a varsói Neriton Kiadó közreműködésében jött létre. A kötet megjelenését Nemzeti Kultúrális Alap, varsói Magyar Kultúrális Intézet és Varsói Egyetem Alapítványa támogatta.

Időpont: 2022. május 31.
Helyszín: Közép-Európai Művészettörténeti Kutatóintézet (KEMKI), Budapest
Jelentkezési határidő: 2022. március 1.
Melyek voltak az 1980-as évek magyarországi művészetének domináns és periférikus tendenciái, és hogyan értékeljük ezeket ma, 30-40 év múltán? Hogyan értelmezzük és kontextualizáljuk a nemzetközi művészeti világban való egyre intenzívebb jelenlétnek, az államszocialista művészeti szervezetek válságának, illetve a posztmodern jelenségek, a különböző művészeti ágak gesamtkunstwerk-szerű keveredésének és az újabb festészeti tendenciák elterjedésének párhuzamos jelenségeit? Hogyan viszonyult egymáshoz az avantgárd tovább élésével kapcsolatos szkepszis felerősödése, a folklorisztikus hagyomány és formavilág, illetve egy új eklektika előtérbe kerülése, és az előző évtizedek tendenciáit folytató experimentalizmus az 1980-as években? Milyen volt a viszonya az évtized magyar képzőművészetének a hazai kulturális rendszer más területeivel, illetve a korszakban tapasztalható hazai és nemzetközi társadalmi és gazdasági átalakulásokkal?

Ottoman Muslim holy places in Central Europe went through a tumultuous history during and after the periods of conquest and re-conquest. Some of them were little more than converted churches with small numbers of Muslims praying in them during the height of Ottoman advances. Farther from the frontlines a number of “greenfield” constructions attested to a growing local Muslim population.
The return of Christian power sealed the fate of all these communities and their shrines: most of the buildings were destroyed, and only a few were spared and transformed to embody the Baroque vision of victory. In the historiography of Ottoman art in Central Europe the period which followed the Christian re-conquest (corresponding mainly to the late 17th century) but preceded the rise of modern scholarly interest (over the course of the 19th century) has received very little attention. In the 18th century, local vestiges from the Ottoman period were often subject to a propagandistic narrative of Muslim defeat and Christian victory which was inherited from the 1680s and -90s. However, a closer look at the period can show that 18th century attitudes towards Ottoman heritage are more varied than they appear at first sight and this local heritage often proved to be highly inspirational for people who were living nearby, as well as visitors who examined them. As part of a larger investigation, this article will introduce selected case-studies of monuments to invite discussion about their diverse aspects, trace their textual and visual sources as well as their relation to parallel developments in other times and places of the history of Muslim conquests and Christian re-conquests.

Az interjú A nagy könyvlopás. Francia könyvkiállítás a vasfüggöny mögött című kiállítást előkészítő kutatás keretében készült. (Szentendrei Képtár, 2019. 09. 20. – 2020. 03. 01., kurátorok: Árvai Mária, Véri Dániel)

Ennek alkalmából 2020-ban kétnyelvű, magyar–angol kiadvány jelenik meg, amely három bevezető tanulmány mellett közli a tíz interjú teljes, szerkesztett szövegét.

Az interjút Árvai Mária és Véri Dániel készítette Budapesten 2019. március 25-én, a szöveget ők szerkesztették, az olvasószerkesztő Zelei Bori volt.

A VI. és VII. fejezet a könyvből. Az utolsó békeév (1913) és az I. világháború kezdetének időszaka (1914-1916): a Nyolcak végnapjai, a párizsi magyar kubista-kör formálódása; miként változtatta meg a magyar modernizmus lehetőségeit az a tény, hogy ellenséges hadviselő félként szembekerültünk Franciaországgal, a magyar kubista csoport szétesése, a Nyolcak és a hadifestészet, Kassák művészetszervező aktivitásának indulása, a modern képzőművészek kapcsolata Bartókkal és Adyval e periódusban.

Hansi Staël, artista húngara com formação realizada nas Academias de Viena e Budapeste, radica-se em Portugal no período após a II Guerra Mundial, transformando significativamente o panorama da indústria cerâmica nacional, ao estabelecer prioridades anteriormente desvalorizadas.
Chegada a Portugal em 1946, a autora inicia de imediato uma prolífica e variada produção plástica que viria a durar até finais da década de 50. No entanto, o trabalho realizado na direcção artística da SECLA (Sociedade de Exportação e Cerâmica Lda.) será o fundamental responsável pela sua importância no contexto da indústria cerâmica portuguesa. Com a fundação do Estúdio SECLA, em 1950, Staël inaugura uma nova aproximação à produção de cerâmica industrial, alicerçada na participação de artistas convidados que colaboram na elaboração de protótipos e motivos decorativos. O seu trabalho intervirá no curso da produção em série com propostas inovadoras, tanto ao nível do design de louça utilitária, como da concepção de louça artística e decorativa, transformando a SECLA numa referência nacional, com presença assídua no mercado internacional.
A corrente publicação, atenta a um eclético corpo de trabalho, centra-se especialmente na obra cerâmica, procurando contextualiza-la nacional e internacionalmente.

The paper deals with the Calvinist rectory of Kolozsvár / Cluj / Klausenburg, built in the middle of the 17th Century. The construction-works of the rectory are related with the rehabilitation of the nearby franciscan church as a Calvinist one, with the support of prince George Rákóczy I.

The tabernacle altar from Vojnany, today in the collections of the Slovak National Gallery in Bratislava, belongs to a small group of altarpieces preserved from the 13th Century. Mostly, they have survived only in fragments (dominantely in form of sculptures - Madonnas and Saints), geographically concentrated in Italy and Scandinavian Lands. In contrast to that, the Madonna (sedes sapientiae) of this Central European piece does not exist any more. However, its whole structure - baldaquin shrine and wings with relief figures of saints is still preserved.
The paper discusses the technological structure, reconstruct the iconography, programme and use of such early altarpieces, as well as questions the place of origin of the Vojnany Tabernacle in particular.
The article is an expanded version of a paper at the conference organised by Otto Pächt Archiv at the University of Vienna in 2017. The whole volume is available at:
https://services.e-book.fwf.ac.at/api/object/o:1485/diss/Content/get

“Social origin and positions are left in the changing room with the clothes” – so it was said at Lake Balaton. This especially concerned Lake Balaton in the 1960s, where visitors from a wide range of social levels could relax together in the spirit of consolidation after the suppressed Hungarian revolution of 1956. And it also became a popular meeting point among East and West German tourists, as an even wider gap opened in the Iron Curtain. Balaton lakeshore development (1957–1968) gave architects opportunities to re-engage with modernism after the post-revolution lessening of socialist-realist pressures, while the country’s technology and economic indicators lagged far behind those of Western European countries. This chapter aims to uncover which alternative solutions were drafted by young architects participating
in the lakeshore’s development, by repositioning modernism within
local conditions.
The Balaton district had been a popular holiday resort before the Second
World War, but only the upper-middle class was able to afford to take a vacation on the lakeshore at that time. In the 1930s, simple, graceful summer houses were built on newly allocated plots, while owners established bathing associations as grassroots movements. These civic organizations, along with promoting cultural life, actively participated in the development of community areas. Among those striving to develop Balaton architecture, the role of young architects deserves highlighting; especially that of Iván Kotsis. Kotsis placed a huge emphasis on elaborating principles for holiday homes that took into consideration regional characteristics. His adaptive way of thinking was greatly influenced by the “haggard and dry regionalism” of German architect Paul Schmitthenner. The Second World War interrupted the process, and during the years after the war, emphasis was placed on the reconstruction of Budapest and on solutions to social problems, which pushed the development of the Balaton region into the background.

***

Hungarian architects often mention the Balaton project nostalgically. The expression “architecture of innocence” appears in several recollections. The term “innocence” refers to enthusiastic and playful experimentation38 while planning small collective facilities and holiday homes. But could this project as a whole be addressed as being innocent? The development was an ambivalent project on the part of the new Communist government. Lake Balaton, providing an illusion of freedom, served the recreation of society after the revolution had failed, while the planning of small collective facilities made the re-creation of architecture possible for designers then breaking free from ideological pressure. The creative adaptation to local conditions led architects onto a new regional path of modernism.
For a short time, the Balaton lakeshore provided an escape for architects
from everyday practice. But after a few years, economic and sociopolitical changes forced an increase in the scale of tourism that led to differentiation of the integrated social concepts and the spread of urbanization. At last, in 1968, the so-called New Economic Mechanism abolished Farkas’s authority as chief architect and this process resulted in the even more ambivalent appearance of the scenic framework of leisure at Lake Balaton.

Essay for the catalogue of the Fiedler-exhibition in the Műcsarnok, 2019. - Hungarian and English. -
(François FIEDLER (1921 – 2001) is a member of the same generation of Hungarian-born artists as Victor Vasarely, Nicolas Schöffer, Simon Hantaï or Judit Reigl, who, having already acquired a certain amount of training in their homeland, left Hungary in the 1930s or 1940s and reached their artistic maturity in France. In 1948 he settled in Paris, where he almost immediately gave up figurative painting and devoted all his attention to abstract art, exploring Tachisme and gestural painting. The great artists of the era, Miró, Chagall and Calder recognised his talent and opened doors for him. Fiedler became an exclusive artist of the Galerie Maeght, and remained faithful to this renowned contemporary art institution for the rest of his life.)

Az interjú A nagy könyvlopás. Francia könyvkiállítás a vasfüggöny mögött című kiállítást előkészítő kutatás keretében készült. (Szentendrei Képtár, 2019. 09. 20. – 2020. 03. 01., kurátorok: Árvai Mária, Véri Dániel)

Ennek alkalmából 2020-ban kétnyelvű, magyar–angol kiadvány jelenik meg, amely három bevezető tanulmány mellett közli a tíz interjú teljes, szerkesztett szövegét.

Az interjút Árvai Mária és Véri Dániel készítette Budapesten 2019. április 30-án, a szöveget ők szerkesztették, az olvasószerkesztő Zelei Bori volt.

This paper seeks to give a comprehensive summary of the state of contemporary Hungarian and international Renaissance research into the activities of Giovanni Dalmata / Ivan Duknovic in the Hungarian Kingdom, as "Hofkünstler" of Matthias Corvinus

A Magyar Művelődési Intézet és Képzőművészeti Lektorátus 2009-ben meghirdetett "A mi kis falunk" című public art projetktjének keretében megvalósult művek (Szabó Ildikó - Tesch Katalin: Re-habilitáció, Takács Szilvia: Marcal, Németh Róbert: Csocsó) hatáselemzése.

This article draws on the findings of research that was aimed at a critical
reconsideration of the alleged absences and presences of feminist art in Hungary from the late 1960s to the mid-1980s. I started out from the recognition that (a) cultural production—and feminist art-making especially—is always embedded in a given social, cultural and material context; and (b) that the gains or grievances, the demands and identity constructions of women in the “Second World” were arguably different from those in developed capitalist democracies. Therefore, rather than looking for the emergence of readily recognizable feminist artistic rhetoric and subject matter as we know these from Western-based feminist cultural criticism, my exploration tried to clear up a more open space for the kind of gender-related critical interrogations that may emerge from a different social and cultural context.

In the 19th century, one of the most important national events in Hungary was the 1896 millennial celebration of the Hungarian conquest of the Carpathian Basin. A central act of the festivity’s symbolical episodes was the erection of the so-called Millennium Memorial (or Millennial Monument) at Heroes’ Square in Budapest. The monument consists of a colonnaded architectural framework that embraces a sculpture gallery featuring Hungarian leaders and rulers. My paper presents the history of the monument from concept to completion. Besides the artistic patterns of the architectural framework designed by Albert Schickedanz, special attention is given to the sculptures of the Hungarian sculptors who worked under the direction of the artist György Zala, as well as to the relations between the sculptors and the artistic scene of Vienna, and to the models they used. In addition to these primarily art historical aspects, my paper discusses the cultural context of the Memorial. It seeks answers to the questions of how the Memorial became a symbol of national identity already at the stage of planning and what ideas about the shaping of the national self-image defined the final form of the Memorial.

Az interjú A nagy könyvlopás. Francia könyvkiállítás a vasfüggöny mögött című kiállítást előkészítő kutatás keretében készült. (Szentendrei Képtár, 2019. 09. 20. – 2020. 03. 01., kurátorok: Árvai Mária, Véri Dániel)

Ennek alkalmából 2020-ban kétnyelvű, magyar–angol kiadvány jelenik meg, amely három bevezető tanulmány mellett közli a tíz interjú teljes, szerkesztett szövegét.

Az interjút Árvai Mária és Véri Dániel készítette Budapesten 2019. április 5-én, a szöveget ők szerkesztették, az olvasószerkesztő Zelei Bori volt.

Az ismeretterjesztő írásom Pancsováról (szerb nevén Pančevo, középkori magyar nevén Pancsal), a hajdani Torontál vármegye legdélebbi városáról szól. Az írás a 2015. szeptember 15-én tett kutatóutamon alapszik. Igyekeztem a tisztelt olvasó számára történeti áttekintést nyújtani, ismertetni a városi magyarságra vonatkozó demográfiai tendenciákat, bemutatni (írott szóval és vizuálisan) a város magyar vonatkozású műemlékeit, végezetül Patyik Róbert római katolikus plébánosnál és Halász Béla református püspöknél a pancsali magyarság jelenlegi helyzete iránt érdeklődtem.

Az interjú "A nagy könyvlopás. Francia könyvkiállítás a vasfüggöny mögött" című kiállítást előkészítő kutatás keretében készült. (Szentendrei Képtár, 2019. 09. 20. – 2020. 03. 01., kurátorok: Árvai Mária, Véri Dániel)

Ennek alkalmából 2020-ban kétnyelvű, magyar–angol kiadvány jelenik meg, amely három bevezető tanulmány mellett közli a tíz interjú teljes, szerkesztett szövegét.

Az interjút Véri Dániel készítette Berlinben 2019. január 3-án, a szöveget ő és Árvai Mária szerkesztették, az olvasószerkesztő Zelei Bori volt.

The Hungarian Memorial in Mauthausen had been the first state-funded fine arts project related to the memory of the Holocaust in Communist Hungary. Two more such endeavours took place in the 1960s: they share the common characteristic of being produced abroad (Mauthausen, 1964; Auschwitz, 1965) or at least for a foreign audience (The Hungarian Artists Against Fascism, Hungarian National Gallery, 1965 – on the occasion of the congress of the Fédération Internationale des Résistants). All three projects intended to showcase through artistic expression the “fight against Fascism” and its heroes in past and present times, namely the country’s Communist leadership.

Upon the request of the Comité International de Mauthausen it was decided as early as in 1955 to erect a monument “for the memory of the victims of Fascism”, but the two meters large memorial column remained only a plan. In 1957 the newly founded Committee of the Persecutees of Nazism (integrated into the Hungarian Partisan Association) took the initiative. They started a fundraising campaign and in 1958 commissioned Aladár Farkas to create a (currently missing) model for a six and a half meters large bronze sculpture.

In 1959, a by invitation only contest was announced by the Fine Arts Fund for six sculptors. The jury selected the plan created by Agamemnon Makrisz, a Greek émigré sculptor living in Hungary, forgoing works by István Kiss, István Martsa, József Somogyi and Ferenc Laborcz (the latter created two plans, whereas Jenő Kerényi did not take part in the contest). Due to the continuously increasing costs, as well as bureaucratic and diplomatic obstacles the date of the erection of the monuments had been repeatedly delayed; finally, the monument was inaugurated in 1964.

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A mauthauseni magyar emlékmű a Kádár-korszak első, holokauszt-emlékezethez kapcsolódó, állami finanszírozású képzőművészeti projektje. A hatvanas években még két hasonló vállalkozásra került sor: közös jellemzőjük, hogy külföldön (Mauthausen, 1964; Auschwitz, 1965), vagy legalábbis külföldi célközönség számára hozták létre azokat (A magyar képzőművészek a fasizmus ellen, Magyar Nemzeti Galéria – a Fédération Internationale des Résistants kongresszusának alkalmából). Mindhárom projekt képzőművészeti eszközökkel volt hivatott bemutatni a „fasizmus elleni harcot”, valamint annak múltbeli és jelenkori hőseit: az országot irányító kommunistákat.

A Comité International de Mauthausen felkérése nyomán már 1955-ben döntés született „a fasizmus áldozatainak emlékére” egy emlékmű felállítására, a két méter magas emlékoszlop azonban csak terv maradt. 1957-ben a frissen megalakult (a Magyar Partizán Szövetségbe betagozódó) Nácizmus Üldözötteinek Bizottsága vette kezébe az ügyet. Gyűjtést indítottak, majd 1958-ban egy hat és fél méter magas bronz szobor (ma lappangó) makettjének elkészítését Farkas Aladárra bízták.

1959-ben a Képzőművészeti Alap meghívásos pályázatot írt ki hat szobrász részére. A zsűri a Magyarországon élő görög emigráns, Makrisz Agamemnon tervét választotta, Kiss István, Martsa István, Somogyi József és Laborcz Ferenc munkáival szemben (utóbbi két tervet is készített, míg Kerényi Jenő nem vett részt a pályázaton). A folyamatosan emelkedő költségek, valamint bürokratikus és diplomáciai akadályok miatt a felállítás időpontja egyre tolódott, az emlékművet végül 1964-ben avatták fel.