The Hungarian National Museum Public Collection  – Petőfi Literary Museum – Kassák Museum cordially invites you to the opening of the exhibition THE MISSING GAZE – ILKA RÉVAI'S REDISCOVERED OEUVRE.

Vernissage: 14 November 2024, Thursday, 6 PM
Venue: Kassák Museum,1033 Budapest, Fő tér 1. (Zichy Castle)
Opening speech by Oliver A. I. Botar, art historian 

Ilka Révai (1873–1945) was a photographer whose unique vision and autonomous aspirations placed her between realistic and avant-garde portraiture of the early twentieth century. The Kassák Museum’s exhibition is the first attempt to present the fragmentary oeuvre of a promising photographer of the 1910s and 1920s. Révai was an intellectual companion of Kassák and his Ma (Today) circle, and her career was characterised by a wide range of interests. Her life reveals the struggles of a woman on the road to emancipation, as a young mother after the untimely death of her husband. She lived in Paris and Nice from 1927 on, only returning home in 1944, a year before her death. Hardly any objects or documents have survived of her work as a photographer in Paris. Ilka Révai’s activities in Paris are reconstructed in Szabolcs KissPál’s work The Parisian Find, which attempts to uncover the contents of a mysteriously discovered trunk. Although the historical authenticity of some of the items in the find cannot be clearly established, the context of the material supports the hypothesis that Ilka Révai’s career as a photographer could have been continued during the 1930s. The exhibition presents photos and documents from private and public collections, both in Hungary and abroad, never seen before in exhibitions.

Curators: Júlia Cserba and Csilla E. Csorba 
Idea of the exhibition: Oliver A. I. Botar 
Exhibition organisation: Edit Sasvári 
Design: Gábor Bogdándy 

Main cooperating partner: Collection of Annamária Básti and Csaba Kajdi.

Lending institutions and collections: Archivio storico del Comune di Meran - Arte Gallery, Budapest - Ervin Marton Estate, Paris - Archivio Comune di Merano - Hungarian Jewish Museum and Archives - Hungarian Museum of Photography, Kecskemét - Fortepan, Budapest - Médiathèque du patrimoine et de la photographie, Paris - Metropolitan Ervin Szabó Library, Budapest Collection, Budapest - HNMPCC Hungarian National Museum, Historical Photographic Archives, Budapest - HNMPCC National Széchényi Library, Budapest - HNMPCC Petőfi Literary Museum, Budapest - Bauhaus Foundation, Dessau - Virginia Museum of Art, Richmond, USA - and private collections in Hungary and abroad 

The exhibition is supported by the Salgo Trust for Education, New York. 

The Missing Gaze  – Ilka Révai's Rediscovered Oeuvre
Attached contemporary art project  – Szabolcs KissPál: The Parisien Find

The exhibition is on view until 1 June 2025.