Publication details
The Birth of Painting from the Spirit of the Gingerbread, Anna Lesznai's Hungarian Exotic in 1920s Vienna
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| Year of publication | 2022 |
| Type | Chapter of a book |
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| Description | This chapter assesses Lesznai's contributions to interwar modernity as a well-connected migrant artist and argues that her explorations of folk art added to her success in interwar Vienna because it related to the city's position as a staging point of central European modernism with strong links to other regions of the former Empire. Born Amalia Moscovitz, Lesznai was raised in an ennobled Hungarian–Jewish family with connections to the highest ranks of the imperial government. Lesznai relocated to Vienna after the First World War and the collapse of the Habs-burg Empire in 1918. In a particularly vibrant review titled “Anna Lesznai-Jászi or the Birth of Painting from the Spirit of the Gingerbread,” Lesznai's watercolors from this exhibition are compared to “a colorful rug of village paradise” in reference to the flatness and bold color of her work. |
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