Ferenc Erfán has been a founding member of the Imre Révész Society of Transcarpathian Hungarian Fine and Applied Artists since its establishment in 1990. In 2005, he was admitted to the Hungarian Academy of Arts, together with painters László Magyar and Lajos Tóth, ceramic artist Anna Horváth, and writers László Vári Fábián, Magda Füzesi, and Zoltán Mihály Nagy, as well as theatre and film director Attila Vidnyánszky. His painting – in its individual style, chromatic world, and subject matter – is rooted in the tradition of Hungarian art in Transcarpathia. Since the least known and least researched segment of our visual culture is precisely the oeuvre of Hungarian artists in Transcarpathia, among them the members of the Imre Révész Society, we shall attempt to give, in broad outline, an account of the specific features and values of their activity. In our view, only in this light can we understand the position and situation of Hungarian painting in Transcarpathia and complement our knowledge of twentieth-century and contemporary Hungarian visual art.
Hungarian art in Transcarpathia – including painting, graphic art, sculpture, applied art, photography, and architecture – remains unknown in twentieth-century Hungarian visual culture. This is because the periods, individual oeuvres, exhibitions, and critical reception have scarcely been processed. Furthermore, few local texts exist, and most have never reached Hungary. Due to twentieth-century historical events, Transcarpathia, a historically Hungarian-inhabited region now in western Ukraine, was almost completely cut off. As a result, we knew virtually nothing about the Hungarians living there. Only after the regime change of the 1990s did aspects of life – including struggles, culture, past, and present – in that region become visible to the Hungarian public. Painter Ferenc Szemán (Öcsi), a member of the Imre Révész Society, put it this way: “People’s scope for movement – even more in a figurative sense than literally – was narrowed down to such an extent that we all lived in a kind of micro-gulag [1].”
In 1992, it was an overwhelming revelation at the meeting of Hungarian fine and applied artists convened in Budapest by the World Federation of Hungarians. Artists had arrived from every corner of the world, including émigré communities and neighbouring countries. Among them, a small group from Transcarpathia drew special attention [2]. Until then, we had known nothing of their existence. Their presence, self-introductions, and contributions raised previously unknown problems and highlighted neglected values – both past and present. This drew attention to the large gaps in our art history and to the culpability of silence. For example, at the 1993 exhibition Tisztelet a Szülőföldnek (lit. In Honour of the Homeland) at the Kunsthalle, artists of Hungarian origin living outside Hungary were excluded for political reasons. As a balance to this, the series Tisztelgés a Honfoglalás 1100. évfordulója előtt (Homage to the 1,100th Anniversary of the Hungarian Conquest) was organised in 1996 at the Semmelweis Street headquarters of the World Federation of Hungarians in Budapest. Artists from Upper Hungary, Transylvania, Vojvodina, and Transcarpathia presented their work. The Hungarian Association of Fine and Applied Artists curated these exhibitions, which originated at the world meeting. The exhibition catalogues are of lasting value; they first presented the rich diversity of artists living in neighbouring countries on their native lands. From Transcarpathia, the following artists exhibited together for the first time in Hungary: Pál Balla, György Benkő, Margit Berecz, Ferenc Erfán, Péter Földessy, Endre Hidi, Marion József Ilku, Ambrus Iván, Mária Jankovics, László Kolozsvári, László Magyar, Sándor Magyar, Péter Matl, Zoltán Micska, Péter Petky, János Réti, György Riskó, Ferenc Szemán (Öcsi), Lajos Tóth, and Péter Veres. Comparing their works with those from Upper Hungary, Transylvania, and Vojvodina makes clear – through styles and themes – how strongly a sense of belonging to the homeland, the Hungarian nation, and Hungarian culture is present in the art of the Imre Révész Society. They possess specific means of expression that were previously unknown to us.
Imre Révész Society
The Imre Révész Society of Transcarpathian Hungarian Fine and Applied Artists, founded in 1990, explicitly unites in its ranks those Hungarian artists of Transcarpathia who stand outside the official state artists’ union. Its chair, painter Lajos Tóth – now deceased – led the society with great prudence and a deep sense of responsibility.
Writer László Vári Fábián introduces them as follows:
“Almost ten years before the turn of the millennium, during the East-Central European regime changes, the Hungarian fine and applied artists of Transcarpathia established their own professional society. They could have chosen the name of Mihály Munkácsy, the best-known Hungarian painter who had left his native land, or Simon Hollósy, founder of the Nagybánya School. Instead, those who were excluded from important domestic exhibitions in the 1970s and 1980s by regime-loyal juries chose painter Imre Révész who preserved national traditions while addressing social conflict with sensitivity. This was not a random decision. Nor was it only because the artist spent his old age in the Nagyszőlős (Vynohradiv) region. The name of Imre Révész carries an important message. His spirit is an integrating force for this community that, beyond upholding professional standards, encourages a constant search for social justice [3].”
In the volume Kárpátaljai Magyar Képző- és Iparművészek Révész Imre Társasága 1990–1995 (lit. The Imre Révész Society of Transcarpathian Hungarian Fine and Applied Artists 1990–1995), published on the occasion of the fifth anniversary of the society’s foundation, the black-and-white reproductions are accompanied by personal testimonies of the artists concerning their convictions and their art [4]. Their words reveal that they define their own artistic practice ‘in opposition’ to that of Transcarpathian artists in general. Yet this does not mean either a repudiation of, or a confrontational stance towards, the traditions of the Transcarpathian School.
To clarify this issue, consider the introduction titled Az érző lélek megszólítása (lit. Addressing the Feeling Soul) by D. Károly Balla, painter, publicist, and critic, written for the above publication. He refers to their most comprehensive exhibition, held in the castle of Ungvár (Uzhhorod). The senior colleague described their work: “Half a decade has been enough for us to see this group as one of the defining intellectual workshops of our homeland. This society’s members – while preserving their individual characteristics – complement and reinforce one another in their representation of an artistic attitude. This attitude, to some degree, bypasses [emphasis: L. Sz.] the achievements of the so-called Transcarpathian School of Painting of recent decades and returns [emphasis: L. Sz.] to national traditions. It can be seen as a renewal and contemporary use of the realist painting of the Great Hungarian Plain [5].”
In the society’s own self-definition of its role, Balla drew attention to another highly important factor. Namely, that “some look with concern, or at least with reservations, on the fact that this group of artists was created on an ethnic basis, and that the term ‘Hungarian’ appears in its official name.” He does not sidestep the issue. While acknowledging that many appeal to the universal language of painting and art, opposing or questioning even the mere broaching of the problem, he argues that, in the case of the Transcarpathian artists, there are very serious grounds for their position. “By asserting and declaring the national character, by taking stock of the presence or absence of a sense of national identity, the members of this society are responding to the decades-long practice of a de-nationalising cultural policy. They maintain that their identity as Hungarians does not entail any kind of separatism, nor does it in any way contradict their conviction that art is a universally human value. Alongside this, however, and in conjunction with it, they consider it of quite crucial importance to re-attach themselves to specifically Hungarian national culture, to draw on Hungarian folk art as a source, and – not least – to serve the Hungarian inhabitants of the Great Plain stretching at the foot of the Carpathians by addressing them in an artistic language that is close to them and nourished (also) from their traditions [6].”
The interviews with the artists likewise give prominent expression to national belonging and commitment. Journalist Sándor Horváth opens his conversation with painter Lajos Tóth in words which today, in 2015, at a time of war between Ukraine and Russia, make us even more keenly aware of the dreadful situation of those living there: “Nowadays, it is hard enough simply to exist in Transcarpathia. To live through, as a creative person, the moral, material and spiritual decline imposed on us is sometimes almost impossible. My first question arises directly from this line of thought: being a painter, a Transcarpathian, and a Hungarian, what is it worth? [Referring to Endre Ady’s poem, Az ős Kaján (The Ancient Maleficent), 1907: ‘Mit ér az ember, ha magyar?’ (’Being Hungarian, what is it worth?’)]” Equally characteristic is the reply from the painter, who died early, before his time: “As a rule, it is time which decides what a painter is worth. As for what the creator is worth, who, here in Transcarpathia, wishing to remain faithful to his Hungarian identity, seeks to send a message to the narrower and the broader homeland, on the one hand, he is worth as much as he fulfils of what he has undertaken, on the other, neither more nor less than the work he creates. I am a painter and a Hungarian here, in Transcarpathia. And here I shall stay! These are matters of fact. I exist as a creator in this way; my works speak of this; this is what I commit myself to.” In the view of Lajos Tóth, who created a personal style and symbolic thematic world, a painting “bears the artist’s hand, his character, and the external forces acting upon him so precisely, that in this respect it is perhaps far more predetermined than works woven from words.
– So, in your opinion, is there a specifically Hungarian painterly language? – asks S. Horváth.
– There is.
– And is there a specifically Transcarpathian Hungarian painterly language as well?
– Yes. I say this notwithstanding the fact that for the whole of Transcarpathian Hungarian culture, the period from 1945 to 1985 was one of ordeals, and we were deprived of almost everything. Yet under the ash, under the snow, the will to act was nonetheless at work, alive, perhaps even effective, and the particular mode of expression took shape. In Hungarian: everyone did what he could, according to their talent, sense of vocation, and identity [7].”
The exhibition in Ungvár (Uzhhorod) was not only the group’s hitherto largest show, but also an event of great significance for the life and culture of the Hungarian community in Transcarpathia, both in its unfolding and in the strength of its self-representation [8].
It can be traced directly to political and social causes that, amid harsh economic conditions and under oppressive power structures, artists pushed to the periphery of livelihood and of cultural and national existence (from both the Soviet and the Hungarian side) set as an emphatic goal, when acting together, the development of their own, specifically Transcarpathian artistic idiom.
It is only an apparent contradiction that they speak of a distinct Transcarpathian artistic language and of the creation thereof at a time when the notion of an official Transcarpathian School of Painting and Art has been ‘existed’ and in use for decades. That concept is associated precisely with the names of two Hungarian painters who lived and worked there – artists respected not only in the region but throughout Ukraine – József Boksay and Béla Erdélyi [9]. As school-founders, their influence is traceable to this day through their pupils.
The issue becomes even more paradoxical when we consider the relatively narrow-gauged history of visual art in the region from the late nineteenth and twentieth centuries. In the light of this, every painter living here – and the members of the Révész Imre Society themselves (the majority of whom studied at the Uzhhorod College of Applied Arts) – are linked, through their teachers, to the art of Erdélyi and Boksay. This is why Lajos Tóth responds in a nuanced fashion when he says: “We would like to continue the Transcarpathian painterly lineage associated with the names of Erdélyi and Boksay, and at the same time, work in such a way that we retain our own distinctive colouring and are organically integrated into modern Hungarian and, indeed, European trends as well [10].”
Journalist Elemér Kovács likewise opens his conversation with painter László Kolozsvári by addressing the question of ‘heritage’: “In the mid-1970s, that is, at the completion of your studies, a talented cohort set out, which quite consciously ‘repudiated’ the renowned Transcarpathian School of Painting. Its members based themselves rather on the classical painterly and cultural traditions of the turn of the century. They intended to be the continuers of the line associated with Mihály Munkácsy, Gyula Ijjász, and Ignác Roskovics [11].” To which we might add, of course, Imre Révész (Sátoraljaújhely, 1859 – Nagyszőlős [Vynohradiv], 1945). For two obvious reasons, they did not consider, in choosing a name, the other great master, Simon Hollósy (Máramarossziget [Sighetu Marmației], 1857 – Técső [Tiachiv], 1918). First, because the name of the founder of the Nagybánya School of Painting was already “taken”. Second, because the style of the Transylvanian and modern Hungarian painting of the Nagybánya circle represents, in its conception of landscape, genre scene and portrait, a markedly different outlook from that of Transcarpathia.
To us, this deliberate ‘step back’ may seem anachronistic. Yet it is not a question of anachronism but of an inward, enclosed process of development which, once national repression had ceased, could, and indeed did, enrich Hungarian visual culture with a multitude of new nuances. The orientation and art of the Révész Imre Society, emerging from a corner of history ‘left behind’, have an unequivocal legitimacy within Hungarian culture as a whole. Within the diversity of Hungarian visual art – embracing a multitude of tendencies, generational divides and stylistic attitudes – their work is present and forms an integral part, just as much as do those artists who, continuing the Nagybánya tradition to this day, present a further variant of post-Impressionism.
We can only properly assess their specific relationship to Hungarian visual art if we have an accurate knowledge of all the circumstances and reasons that forged together the members of the Imre Révész Society – differing in level and style yet sharing a common system of values – into a coherent group. (Ferenc Erfán completed his studies at the Lviv State Institute of Applied and Decorative Art (now: Lviv National Academy of Arts), Mária Jankovics and Margit Berecz at the Lviv College of Applied Arts, and Ferenc Szemán at the Tallinn Art University (now: Estonian Academy of Arts). Their firm orientation and choice can be traced back to both political and artistic causes.
For them, the return to tradition – to the art of Munkácsy and Révész – signifies their ars poetica, their sense of mission towards their native land and their Hungarian identity, and their faith in the future. Amid the bleakness that surrounds them, these roots provide the sustaining force and inspiration for creation. At the same time, there is no sharp confrontation with either the new currents in Ukrainian art or those in Europe. They merely mark out a distance from the earlier Soviet Ukrainian–Russian artistic milieu.
In their choice, they signalled a new beginning: consciously severing and discarding the art and cultural legacy defined by the political regime. This also implied a critique of the ‘Transcarpathian School of Painting’ as represented by Boksay and Erdélyi. The best-known representatives of the first, second, and third generations of that school had compromised themselves; they sought to comply with the authorities of the day. After 1945, their art became empty, inauthentic, and ‘alien’. As László Kolozsvári put it: “Of the greats I have known and respected, János Sütő, Gábor Glück, and Antal Kassai possessed a fully developed style already at the outset, and they were perhaps the last who, through their work, were able to present something genuinely new from the Carpathian landscape – which, so to speak, for nearly fifty years had every right to be the subject of painting, for it is so colourful, so rich, so marvellous [12].” The Soviet Ukrainian regime, however, conceived the Carpathian range, the forest-covered mountains and the surrounding landscape as the principal landscape motif of Ukrainian painting. In consequence, in the paintings, the typical blue and bluish-violet tones of Russian–Ukrainian art (and folk art) emerged ever more strongly. Access to official state exhibitions, recognition, and commissions was reserved for those belonging to the nomenklatura. Many could say that the Khrushchev and Brezhnev eras were pure torment for them, and that they survived only by constantly working and painting, as, for instance, Ferenc Szemán did.
A brief overview of the history of visual art in Transcarpathia from 1918, the three generations of the Transcarpathian School of Painting
As outlined above, there was no single period of continuous cultural development for the Hungarians of the region [13]. By its very nature, visual art (training, academies, study trips, and costly technical means such as canvas, paint, frames, exhibitions, sales, and galleries) could only subsist within extremely narrow confines and under conditions amounting practically to the impossibility of a living artistic life.
During the Czechoslovak period [two decades (1919–1938) during which the region, known at the time as Subcarpathian Ruthenia, formed the easternmost province of the newly established Czechoslovakia], two further important events occurred in the visual arts. In 1921, the Art Club of Munkács (later Club of Ruthenian Painters) was founded in Munkács (Mukachevo), under the leadership of painter Gyula Virágh [14]. Then, in 1931, the Podkarpatszka Ruszi (Association of Visual Artists of Subcarpathian Ruthenia) was set up on the initiative of József Boksay, Béla Erdélyi, and the Czech painters Bedřich Oždian and Jaroslav Kaigl. From 1946 to 1949, its regional chair was Béla Erdélyi.
The strengthening of local artistic life was signalled when, in 1924 (at the initiative of Gyula Ijjász), the idea of establishing an academy of fine arts arose. In 1927, in Uzhhorod, Boksay and Erdélyi founded the first free school of painting. The two complemented one another well as teachers: Erdélyi represented a freer artistic outlook, while Boksay was characterised by a more constrained yet technically more assured approach. Among their pupils were Zoltán Soltész, Sándor Petky, András Koczka, Ernő Kontratovics and Béla Boreczky, who, together with Tivadar Manajló, Gábor Glück, Vilmos Berecz, György Endrédy and Miklós Rosenberg, constitute the second generation of the Transcarpathian School of Painting [15].
In the summer of 1941, the Association of Visual Artists of Carpathian Ruthenia was formed, or re-formed. After 1945, Erdélyi attempted, without success, to revive and continue the work of the Association established in 1931. Instead, he was entrusted with organising the local branch of the artists’ union of the republic, where he initially served as chair.
Nor was Erdélyi’s plan for the establishment of an academy of fine arts in Uzhhorod realised. After 1945, the state deliberately downgraded and, after only a few months, closed the institution, which had promised to be of a high standard, and in its place authorised a secondary-level school of applied arts – the Uzhhorod College of Applied Arts, often referred to simply as the ‘uciliste’. The first students of the nascent academy and of the college that replaced it constitute the third generation of the Transcarpathian School of Painting (Pál Balla, József Garanyi, László Habda, Anna Horváth, Erzsébet Kremniczky, Miklós Medveczky, Medveczky-Luták Edit, János Sütő, István Szőke, Gyula Szatskó, and others) [16].
It was from this school that, in the mid-1970s, a gifted and committed cohort swarmed out – the group that later gave life to the Imre Révész Society. (At the time when the future members of the Imre Révész Society were studying there, there was no separate painting department, so they mostly graduated in metalwork and ceramics.) Several members continued their studies at higher-level institutions of fine and applied arts in Lviv, Kyiv, and Tallinn (Ferenc Erfán, Ferenc Szemán, Mária Jankovics, and Margit Berecz).
The regime changes of the 1990s opened up space for them. The Society’s debut broke with the conventions hitherto officially accepted and enforced. Against value judgements imposed from above, they presented – through their individual styles and themes – a world that appeared new. For their continued existence, it was crucial that they recognised and embraced their differences in genre and in level of training. They strove for authentic, non-manipulated artistic self-expression and for a truthful depiction of their subjects. In their paintings, the Great Hungarian Plain emerged as a theme hitherto unseen. The homeland, the landscape encircled by mountain ranges, its beauty, atmosphere, and pure inspirational force came to the fore: the faces of the peasants of the Ung and Bereg Tiszahát regions, and the lowland landscape, scarcely ever portrayed in the art of Transcarpathia.
In the Soviet era, alongside the popularity and one-sided proliferation of paintings depicting the Carpathians – the colourful forest-covered mountains, the characteristic timber houses and the Ukrainian and Ruthenian peasants living in them – the question understandably arises as to whether works that did not fit, or were not deemed to fit, into the desired homogeneity were deliberately banished. The authorities' cultural-political planning showed no interest in the culture of the Hungarian minority living there, nor in the representation of the conditions of their existence and survival.
The members of the Imre Révész Society seek, in their works and art, to live and emphasise freedom. They wish to give voice freely to their commitment to Hungarian identity, and freely to experience and express the beauty of their homeland and of life itself. Through their chosen community and sense of belonging, they aim to ‘move beyond’ the neglect and exclusion of the past fifty, or indeed nearly one hundred, years. Their proclaimed return to the old (Transcarpathian) traditions signifies a clean slate, a new and free starting point, the continuation of a once-interrupted, rich cultural life and community. As Károly Balla D. notes: “through their common action, individual capacities are synthesised into a higher, superior quality,” in a new era that is one of a world after a disintegrated power structure. In this new world, which lacks humaneness and in which social and national relations and systems of values are in a state of total disintegration, it falls to creative artists to defend both their own values and those of the community. Despite the difficult circumstances, the members of this group bear witness in favour of art, seeking to prove that artistic creation can preserve genuine values. (Since the foundation of the Imre Révész Society, which originally numbered fourteen members, many have passed away: Ambrus Iván (1929–20??), Mária Jankovics (1962–2007), László Kolozsvári (1950–2013), György Riskó (1955–2014), Ferenc Szemán (Öcsi) (1937–2004), Lajos Tóth (1948–2006), and Péter Veres (1934–2004). It is a tragically high number and a grievous loss. And yet the final sentence of József Zselicki in the catalogue for their exhibition in Uzhhorod in 1995, and later, at the 2000 World Expo in Hanover, was the following: “May misfortune never befall them!”
The author has a PhD in art history.
[1] Kárpátaljai Magyar Képző- és Iparművészek Révész Imre Társasága 1990–1995. (lit. Imre Révész Society of Transcarpathian Hungarian Fine and Applied Artists 1990–1995.) Authors of the volume: Mihály Debreceni, Sándor Horváth, Endre Jánki, Elemér Kovács, Zoltán Kulin, István Palkó, Andor Tárczy, and Béla Varga. Tárogató Lap- és Könyvszerkesztőség, Ungvár (Uzhhorod), 1995, p. 112.
[2] For those present, this was at least as much a surprise and revelation as the appearance, at the first world convention organised by the World Federation of Hungarians after the regime change, of a group of “Magyarab people” arriving from Africa.
[3] Website: http://credoalapitvany.virtualave.net/revesz/index_hu.htm The Imre Révész Society joined the Kárpátaljai Magyar Egyházi Kulturális Újjászületési, Zene- és Képzőművészeti Credo Alapítvány (Credo Foundation for the Ecclesiastical and Cultural Renewal, Music, and Visual Arts of the Hungarians in Transcarpathia), which was registered that same year, 1998.
[4] Interviews with individual artists: with painter György Benkő by Zoltán Kulin: Georges, az aszimmetrikus (Georges the Asymmetric). With textile artist Margit Berecz by Andor Tárczy: Madonna – Ecsettel (Madonna – With a Brush). With painter Ferenc Erfán by Mihály Debreczeni: Üvegbe vágva (Cut into Glass). With ceramic artist Endre Hidi by Elemér Kovács: A boglyakemence lángja (The Flame of the Haystack Kiln). With painter Ambrus Iván by E. Kovács: Hogy a magányban gyönyörködni lehessen (So That One Might Delight in Solitude). With textile artist Mária Jankovics by István Palkó: A Szín-Művész (The Colour-Artist). With painter László Kolozsvári by E. Kovács: Akinek a „Nagy Sömmi” a Minden (For Whom the “Great Nothing” Is Everything). With painter László Magyar by M. Debreczeni: A reményt sohasem szabad feladni (One Must Never Give Up Hope). With goldsmith Sándor Magyar by András Jánki: Vasvirágok (Iron Flowers). With painter and graphic artist Péter Petky by Béla Varga: Művészet nélkül még mindig a kőkorszakban lennénk (Without Art We Would Still Be in the Stone Age). With painter and graphic artist János Réti by A. Tárczy: Derűn táncoló (Dancing in Cheerfulness). With painter György Riskó by B. Varga: Az embernek szüksége van a hitre (Man Needs Faith). With painter Ferenc Szemán by Sándor Horváth: Szeretet, szépség, békesség (Love, Beauty, Peace). With painter and graphic artist Lajos Tóth by S. Horváth: Hosszútávfutás – akadályokkal (Long-Distance Run – With Obstacles). With painter Péter Veres by A. Jánki: Ha a sors ideparancsolt bennünket (If Fate Has Ordered Us Here).
[5] Kárpátaljai Magyar Képző- és Iparművészek Révész Imre Társasága 1990–1995. (lit. Imre Révész Society of Transcarpathian Hungarian Fine and Applied Artists 1990–1995.), p. 5.
[6] Ibid., p. 6.
[7] Ibid., p. 121.
[8] Fifteen members of the Imre Révész Society exhibited there. By 1995, of the original fourteen founding members, two had moved to Hungary, and the group had grown by three.
[9] József Boksay (1891–1975) and Béla Erdélyi (1891–1955) both studied at the Hungarian Academy of Fine Arts. Boksay attended between 1910 and 1914, and upon returning to his native land became renowned for his Impressionist landscapes and his classically composed church altarpieces. Because of this latter body of work, he fell out of favour during the Soviet period. After his studies in Budapest (1911–1916), Béla Erdélyi spent a longer period in Munich and Paris. Upon returning to Transcarpathia, he taught and held important positions in the region’s artistic life.
[10] Kárpátaljai Magyar Képző- és Iparművészek Révész Imre Társasága 1990–1995. (lit. Imre Révész Society of Transcarpathian Hungarian Fine and Applied Artists 1990–1995.) , p. 121.
[11] Ibid., p. 60. László Kolozsvári (1950–2013), painter, follower of the realist traditions associated with Mihály Munkácsy and Imre Révész, as well as of Great Plain painting.
[12] Kárpátaljai Magyar Képző- és Iparművészek Révész Imre Társasága 1990–1995. (lit. Imre Révész Society of Transcarpathian Hungarian Fine and Applied Artists 1990–1995.), p. 61.
[13] Csilla Fedinec: Magyar könyvkiadás és képzőművészet kapcsolata Kárpátalján (1918-tól napjainkig) (lit. The Relationship between Hungarian Book Publishing and Visual Art in Transcarpathia from 1918 to the Present), in: “Az elsüllyedt jelek.” A 20. századi magyar könyvillusztráció Magyarország határain kívül 1918-tól napjainkig. (lit. “The Submerged Signs”. Twentieth-Century Hungarian Book Illustration Beyond the Borders of Hungary from 1918 to the Present.) Magyar Képzőművészek és Iparművészek Társasága, Budapest, 2003, pp. 138–161.
[14] Members: József Boksay, Béla Erdélyi, Gyula Virágh, Emil Grabovszky, and Gyula Ijjász. (Ijjász later emigrated to the USA, where he spent many years.)
[15] Ferenc Manajló, András Kocka, and Ernő Kontratovics became teachers at the Uzhhorod College of Art.
[16] Balla László, Erdélyi Béla és kortársai. Kárpátaljai képzőművészeink három nemzedéke (lit. László Balla, Béla Erdélyi, and Their Contemporaries. Three Generations of Our Artists in Transcarpathia). Ungvár–Budapest, 1994. Teachers at the Uzhhorod College of Applied Arts between 1948 and 1975: painter and graphic artist Vilmos József Berecz (1915–1999), who studied at the Technical University in Prague and then, between 1939 and 1940, at the Budapest Academy of Fine Arts.