Bidspirit auction | Hanna Dallos (1907–1945) — Album

Hanna Dallos (1907–1945) — Album of Woodcuts: Mi Atyánk [”Our Father in Heaven”], 1933 - A monumental and expressive graphic art album, entirely designed by the artist. The album is devoted wholly to visual visions accompanying the lines of the Christian Lord's Prayer (”Our Father in Heaven”) from the Gospel of Matthew. The original cover of the album presents a dominant typographic motif of a Christogram (the Chi-Rho symbol and the letter P) integrated into a cross formed by the initial letters of the prayer's title. Within the gathering unfolds a series of ten deeply expressive woodcuts, printed on thick, fine-quality paper. The graphic style skillfully combines European modernism of the 1930s with an unmistakable homage to the Renaissance carving art of Albrecht Dürer's school. The figures are rendered in sharp, geometric, and expressive lines, with dramatic and intense chiaroscuro contrasts between opaque black ink surfaces and white light voids that highlight scenes of revelation, prayer, and human compassion. Each print is protected by an original transparent tissue paper leaf on which the typographic lines of the verses are printed in Hungarian (together with an accompanying leaf carrying an English translation for the international market). This is a complete copy comprising all ten original prints published in this historic edition. 39.5 × 30 cm. Condition Report: • Outer cover: shows natural aging and wear typical of paper albums of this period; minor tears and abrasions to the sheet edges and corners, as well as light foxing. • Interior: the woodcuts and tissue leaves are preserved in very good to excellent condition. The black ink contrast is sharp. *** Hanna Dallos was a prominent Hungarian-Jewish graphic artist, designer, and teacher, active in Budapest during the 1930s and 1940s. She studied at the Academy of Applied Arts in Budapest and established an independent and successful studio for graphics and design. Dallos was an exceptionally spiritual figure and served as the central axis of a small mystical group that included her husband József Schweiger and her student companions Gitta Mallász and Lili Strauss. Between 1943 and 1944, against the horrors of World War II and the Third Reich-era occupation, the group experienced a series of spiritual revelations that were documented in thousands of pages and later became the world-famous bestseller Talking with Angels . Due to her Jewish origin, Dallos was persecuted by the fascist Arrow Cross authorities in Hungary. Despite bold rescue attempts, she was ultimately deported and murdered during a death march toward the end of the war, in early 1945. Her graphic work, and in particular her mystical woodcuts, are today regarded as rare gems of the Hungarian avant-garde and interwar spirituality.