Ida Szigethy - Works from '82 to '90

When asked what me and surrealism or surrealism and me have to do with each other, I can say: it actually came to me!

It was when I was still at high school, when I randomly walked into the Secession and fell into a fantastic Surrealism exhibition. I had never seen anything like that before, it was a marvellous shock which took me into a new world. I was particularly impressed by Rudolf Hausner's ‘Ark of Ulysses’, which I still can't get out of my head, Ernst Fuchs' early marvellous pictures and Wolfgang Hutter's vibrant and vivid circus paintings. By Paul Klee's cheerful watercolours and by reading his amusing picture titles.

These were the first influences, then came the Viennese ‘Art Club’ and later the discovery of the Parisian scene, the works of Max Ernst and René Magritte, which particularly inspired me in the way they were conceived and painted. All this went through my head for a long time and later flowed into my work.

I address topics that I constantly encounter, read books, poems, newspapers, I am curious about what happens in everyday life. Or they, the images and themes, just come to me, even in dreams and then suddenly appear on the canvas in the morning. Planned constructions change during the painting process and become new images.

That is almost the miracle of painting for me, new every time and always fascinating.

-Ida Szigethy

Ida Szigethy was born in 1933 in Vienna in an artistic family.

At the Art Club Vienna, in the early 50’s she regularly met the artistic avantgarde. Her interest in literature strongly influenced her work. In 1955 Szigethy played in Peter Kubelka’s film “Mosaik im Vertrauen“ and in films by Ferry Radax. In 1960, she started to paint as an autodidact.

From 1970 on she started exhibiting her work in galleries and spaces, among others at: Forum Stadtpark, Graz (1972); Biennale of Naive Art, Zagreb (1973); Austrian Cultural Forum, Milan (2005); Belvedere 21, Vienna (2014); Albertina Modern, “The Beginning – Art in Austria, 1945-1980” Vienna (2020), Museo Civico d’Arte Antica, Palazzo Madama, Turin (2020).

Her paintings are in the collection of, among others: Albertina Museum, Vienna; the Austrian Chancellery Vienna; Oesterreichische Postsparkassa Vienna; Barclays Bank, Paris, Collection Rothschild, Paris, as well as in the collection of Friedensreich Hundertwasser in Venice. Among others, Theresa Präauer, Friedensreich Hundertwasser, Barbara Frischmuth, Gerhard Roth have written about her work.