Hungarian Israeli Artists in Quest of Identity: Fra Angelico’s Annunciation Reinterpreted by Hédi Tarján (1932–2008)

Although the scholarly exploration of the Hungarian aliya started in the last decades, the comprehensive study of Hungarian Israeli artists and their complex identity is still missing. Therefore, my presentation aims to introduce a non-traditional variant of the Annunciation story (Luke 1: 26-38), the series Homage to Fra Angelico of Hédi Tarján.

The tapestry artist and painter Hédi Mária Tarján (1932–2008) was born in an assimilated Jewish family in Budapest which converted to Christianity. Her series was created in Jerusalem between 1980s and 2000s and was scattered in different collections. It depicts her patroness saint and exemplifies a possible reconciliation of her hybrid national and religious identities in the spirit of ‘Diasporist painting’ and ‘radicant art’. Tarján retained the traditional elements of Mary’s blue garments and the hortus conclusus. At the same time, she altered the original works’ iconography by translating different literary sources into visual language. The most unusual part is the close embrace of the saint and the angel. It can invoke the iconography of Jacob wrestling with the angel and the Christian Visitation. The former episode, when Jacob was renamed Israel, can also allude to Tarján’s Holocaust trauma and to her struggles as an immigrant to integrate into a new society.

The subject will be explored from interdisciplinary and methodologically diverse points of view, including the perspective of art history, hagiography, iconography, semiotics, Jewish studies, and sociology. Besides the Christian literary sources, I will consider the annunciation scenes of the Hebrew Bible, the Jewish tradition dealing with the angels, enclosed gardens, and the blue color. The lecture seeks to present the means how visual arts can contribute to cross-cultural, interfaith dialogue, and at the same time strengthen and rethink the Israel–Diaspora relationship.