1514

Gyula Derkovits

Gyula Derkovits carved the blocks for this portfolio in 1928 at the behest of the Austrian Communist Party when he lived briefly in Vienna. The plates illustrate the Hungarian Peasant Revolt of 1514 in which Gyorgy Dosza, a Transylvanian former mercenary, led about 40,000 members of the peasantry of Hungary to battle against their landlords and King Vladislaus II, in a series of events that took place over several months. He was eventually captured, tortured, and executed, eventually leading to his martyrdom. Dosza was repeatedly referenced by groups who fought against the Kingdom of Hungary and, in the early 20th century, fascists.

This portfolio would become the work that cemented Derkovits' place in early Hungarian modernism. The blocks were reproduced in copperplate in 1931 for further publication. Though Derkovits died just three years later, the portfolio would continue to inspire, and was republished in 1945 and 1972.