The latest publication of the Institute of Art History, edited by Barbara Dudás, was published under the title The Master of Colors – From the Correspondence of Painter and Illustrator László Bartha. The 320-page book, with 57 black-and-white and color photo appendices, can be purchased at the bookstore of the Research Centre for the Humanities (Penna Bölcsész Könyvesbolt) and in the national networks of Libri and Bookline.
Although, the career of László Bartha (1908–1998), a painter and illustrator born in Transylvania has ended more than twenty years ago, a comprehensive study of his oeuvre is yet to be published. In this volume, we present his previously unpublished letters, preserved in manuscript form, addressed to his first wife, Irén Karácsonyi, also a painter, and to his daughter, Ágnes Bartha, a goldsmith. The letters sent from artist colonies, scholarships abroad, professional and family trips, and from his rural home, written between the beginning of the 1930s and the mid-1980s primarily discuss professional issues, presenting the most important stages, problems, characters, and events of Bartha's life.
At the end of the volume, one can also read a biography broken down by years, listing major biographical events, group and individual exhibitions, and other professional commissions. To further aid the interpretation, the persons included in the letters are presented in a lexicon-like chapter at the end of the volume, while the publication closes with a selection of family photos and reproductions of Bartha’s works. By publishing this edited volume of letters, the book aims to bring Bartha's rich, but slowly fading oeuvre closer to today's audience, as well as to provide – through Bartha's subjective lens – an insight into the operation of the art world of a complex historical era.
The volume was compiled, provided with notes by, and the introduction and appendices were written by Barbara Dudás. The book was published in Hungarian.
