The museum is also home to Kassák’s private library, which contains numerous first editions and rare avant-garde periodicals. The greater part of our collection of over half a thousand avant-garde periodicals comes to us from Kassák’s archives. This collection is unique in Hungary, and our Kassák publications are augmented by numerous titles of the Hungarian and international avant-garde movement, many of which appeared in limited print runs (periodicals, exhibition catalogues, flyers and anthologies). We also hold international avant-garde periodicals published between 1910 and 1950, which represent an important research resource not only because of their rarity, but also their significance as a historical collection. These German, Austrian, Italian, French, Dutch, British, American, Czech, Romanian, Polish, Russian, Serbian, Croatian and Japanese periodicals document the international context within which Kassák and the other Hungarian avant-garde artists worked, and may also be used as a basis from which to reconstruct the Kassák group’s international network of contacts.
The rare books are supplemented by a research library of the most up-to-date research into Hungarian and international modernism and avant-garde.
Futurist publications from the collection of Andor Tiszay
Our holdings also include around 100 Italian Futurist publications collected by avant-garde actor, director and journalist Andor Tiszay, during his time spent in Italy in the mid-1920s. Much like the rest of our periodical collection, the Tiszay-library contains numerous signed, annotated and even re-drawn publications, and thus may be regarded as seminal communication media of the international avant-garde.
The Ferenc Kiss collection
In 2020, the avant-garde collection of the Kassák Museum was significantly expanded with the acquisition of the Ferenc Kiss collection. The collection consists of more than 600 items and contains Hungarian and European avant-garde and modernist magazines, books and related materials (eg. printing technology, design and advertising) published in the first half of the 20th century.