My paternal grandmother, who was born in 1908 and died in 1988, used to have this collection of three postcards (?) up on her wall. I recently saw it at my parents’ place and requested that I take it with me so I could put it up in my home. It reminds me of my grandmother whom I loved dearly (and whom, as you can probably tell from the above dates, I knew for all too brief a part of my life). On the back, my grandmother wrote: Graz 1926-27. There is also some hard-to-read handwriting on the front that you can see on the image. Only recently did I stop to look at the pictures individually. For me, their entire meaning comes from my memories associated with them as a whole.
{ 7 comments }
e julius drivingstorm 08.23.09 at 3:28 pm
Well, if a zinnoberfest is anything like an octoberfest and your grandmother was 19 years old, I’m sure her memories were, roaring twenties and all… wait, this was in Hungary? Interesting time.
Eszter Hargittai 08.23.09 at 4:53 pm
The term Zinnoberfest seems to be associated with this artist’s name (Wilhelm Thöny) online, not much else (in fact, thanks to its mention in your comment, this page is already among the top hits for it on Google!:). It looks like Thöny’s birthplace was Graz so then it would make sense that they would sell reproductions of his work there. My grandmother lived in Hungary, but trips to Austria would make sense.
Twisted_Colour 08.24.09 at 12:41 am
Those are some vary scary clowns.
e julius drivingstorm 08.24.09 at 2:58 am
“…this page is already among the top hits for it on Google!:).
No. 5, with a bullet. If we wanted, we could make stuff up and disinform ’em, (harmless stuff like telling your waitress, “Make sure you bring plenty of butter – I’m a diabetic.”)
Looks like somebody named Thony signed these. Since he lost nearly all of his prodigious collection in a fire, we may never know if there are gaps in any Raelian code rumors which may surface pertaining to the remaining body of his work. Feel free to moderate.
Eszter Hargittai 08.24.09 at 10:12 am
EJD – That’s mean!;-)
For anyone searching for Thöny/Thony and reading these comments, I’d like to point out that it is my grandmother who added the note about Thöny not Thöny himself. Please ignore e julius drivingstorm’s comment above.
Dirk Zorn 08.25.09 at 9:15 am
I think the “postcards” you mention aren’t actually postcards but original lithographies. According to this site, Thöny created a set of 3 invitation cards for the 1928 Zinnoberfest of the Grazer Sezession, an artists’ group which modeled this reunion on similar reunions organized by Dadaists elsewhere (e.g. Kurt Schwitters in Hanover/Germany in the same year). It is highly likely that the three cards are pretty valuable collectives, as pointed out on the site.
Dirk Zorn 08.25.09 at 9:17 am
Sorry, I screwed up the link in my previous post. It’s been a while since I last used HTML.
I think the “postcards†you mention aren’t actually postcards but original lithographies. According to this
site, Thöny created a set of 3 invitation cards for the 1928 Zinnoberfest of the Grazer Sezession, an artists’ group which modeled this reunion on similar reunions organized by Dadaists elsewhere (e.g. Kurt Schwitters in Hanover/Germany in the same year). It is highly likely that the three cards are pretty valuable collectives, as pointed out on the site.
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