Kemény, György: Self-portrait as a Child (1968)

Wallkyd and mixed media on fiberboard
Long-term loan from the Peter und Irene Ludwig Stiftung, Aachen, 2020
Keywords

Graphic artist and poster designer GYORGY KEMENY arrived in Paris in 1963, where he first encountered pop art, the works of Warhol, Wesselmann, Oldenburg and Lichtenstein, by peering through an open storage door of a gallery. The picture, with its pop art colour and brightness, evokes a 1940s photograph of the artist, while the split surface features a portrait on different planes, a memory of summers at Lake Balaton, a glass of raspberry schnapps and the burning figure of Mickey Mouse, as the real fabric jacket with its wooden buttons steps out into the space. The seemingly serene work alludes to the artist’s life story. In 1944, to save his son’s life, his father sent him to a Jewish orphanage. From there, however, the children and their teacher were taken away by the Arrow Cross guards and the teacher, meanwhile, read to them from a book about Mickey Mouse to calm them. He was shot dead the next day and the children were taken to the Danube bank, but their execution was prevented by a Soviet artillery attack. The cartoon character thus carries a heavy meaning, a reminder not only of their lost childhood and their teacher, but also of the Holocaust. This is emphasized by the framed image in the upper left corner of the picture, which reveals a sketchy transcription of a worldfamous photograph taken during the liquidation of the Warsaw Ghetto. In this case, the pop art solutions do not obscure but rather highlight the serious content behind the colourfulness.