Horthy. 20 dessins par Michael Biró.
[Wien]: [Anzengruber-Verlag, Brüder Suschitzky], [1920]. First edition. In publisher’s illustrated folder with strings. 20 loose large lithographs with printed titles in Hungarian, French, German, and English. 20 loose lithograph plates ca. 340 × 480 mm. / Folder rubbed, corners bumped. Artistically restored. The plates are tanned, otherwise in very good condition.
The first edition of the Biró’s renowned Horthy-cycle, a graphical documentation of the White Terror in Hungary.
One of the best-known and most uncompromising Hungarian graphic designers at the beginning of the 20th century, creator of the famous image of Social Democrats, the Red Man with Hammer, Mihály Biró (1886–1948) devoted himself early to the leftist social and political ideas. After the fall of the short-lived Hungarian Soviet Republic in 1919, Biró had to flee to Vienna from the terror of revenge, and the right-wing dictatorship led by Miklós Horthy. In Vienna, Biró created the present cycle of twenty shocking colored lithographs, a graphical interpretation of the horror stories told by Hungarian emigrants in Vienna, who reported about the dramatic events of the White Terror and the anti-Semitic pogroms in their homeland. As a result of the publication of his portfolio, a warrant for Biró’s arrest was issued in Hungary, he was permanently expelled from the country, and the copies of the folder found in Hungary were destroyed.
Price: €20,000.00