Holy Mother and Child

Ilonka Karasz

An unsigned woodcut by American designer - artist Ilonka Karasz (1896-1981). The multi-talented artist Ilonka Karasz was born in Budapest in 1896 and attended the Wiener Werkstatte-inspired Hungarian Royal Academy of Art and Crafts as a teen with her sister, noted designer Mariska Karasz.

Karasz counted among her accomplishments an amazing 186 covers for the New Yorker, beginning in inaugural year with the sixth cover in April of 1925 and continuing into the 1970s. A designer, teacher, author, and craftswoman she was also an accomplished printmaker and painter.

This woodcut, "Holy Mother and Child", was done in an unstated small edition around 1920. Despite her avant-garde ways she always had a deep spiritual side which sometimes was reflected in her work. This image may have been done to illustrate a publication.