more on Molnar Vera

I finally received the two big books covering the entire oevre of Vera Molnar, that is more than 50-60 years of focused, consistent, and inspired art producing work. And what beauties these books are: they sport an oversized format and contain between 500 to 600 pages each. Almost on every single page you find one illustration, presenting several hundred pieces, page after page. One book is dedicated to black and white work, the other to the color pieces. A beautiful hard cover (with her signature embossed) holds the snowwhite, strong paper stock. The texts are bi-lingual in german and french (but don't worry if you don't understand either language, the images speak for themselves). This is a limited edition of 1000 copies each and it comes with a serious pricetag of 150 Euros for both! Don't even ask about the shipping cost from Europe to the US, it's probably another 150 Euros, that's how heavy the books are. I had them hand-carried to California and saved a bundle.



What is amazing to me is that these books are a R E V E L A T I O N of the artistic strength, aesthetic beauty, and intellectual power of Vera Molnar's art. Only now do I see her true stature with full force. The bits and pieces I had seen over the years, in articles and books, exhibitions and shows, did not add up to the panoramic vistas displayed in these two books. It becomes crystal clear that Vera has been developing her very own vocabulary consisting of elementary visual units such as lines, and squares, and circles, and - of course: COLOR. Also documented here is a strategy Vera has been employing many times over the years, namely to study and analyse paintings of masters of art, abstract art in particular, only to apply her findings in newly enriched pieces made by herself. She usually titled them as a "Hommage" to a particular artist. That's why we find a "Malévitch dérangé" next to studies on a theme by Mondrian next to Hommages á Dürer, Renoir, and Klimt.



Also interesting to watch the interplay unfold between her sketches, drawings, and paintings and the many trials and studies of computer generated work. Now you can understand how her early vision informed her computer concepts and vice versa as she proceeded to explore new visual dimensions. It is pretty obvious: Vera Molnar is one of the masters of abstract art or Konkrete Kunst regardless of the medium and the means involved. It's very nice to view documents of her mastery in these books. Still, it would be much more powerful to see the real thing like those lucky visitors of her recent retrospective at the Wilhelm Hack Museum in Ludwigshafen. Judging from a few large scale photographs, Vera Molnar's shows at the März Galerie in Ladenburg, Germany must have been fabulous as well. BTW the gallerist, Linde Hollinger, is the editor and publisher of the two books and she deserves full credit. Inquire about the publication, Vera Molnar - Inventar with her.

A final tip, if you don't feel like spending a fortune on the big books you can go for a smaller but very nice catalog. It's only 20 Euros and provides a good initial glimpse into Vera's World. You can order it at the Wilhelm Hack Museum's bookstore. In the meantime we keep dreaming of a comprehensive Vera Molnar retrospective stateside.