This exhibition presents the life work of tie-dyer Miklós Kovács as well as 200 years of artwork by the Kovács Family up to the present day.

The exhibition features the life work of the Tiszakécske (Hungary) based Artist of the Nation and Kossuth Awards winner 96-year-old tie-dyer Miklós Kovács. The showcasing ranges from the beginning of Miklós Kovács’ career to the present day introducing the art tradition established by his great-grandfather in Kecskemét and practiced by several family generations extending to the youngest. Master of Folk Art Award winner Miklós Kovács was born into a family of tie-dyers: he acquired his artistic knowledge from his parents. His wife, Margitka, has been Miklós Kovács’ co-creator for more than 60 years. This exhibition presents all artistic variations afforded by tie-dying techniques ranging from indigo and indanthrone painted products through hand-crafted and perrotine works to negative patterns and the lively world of colourful motifs. The continuation of the tie-dying tradition, which has been almost extinct for decades and has always been handed down from father to son, is now preserved and continued by Miklós Kovács and Margitka’s daughters, Gabriella and Maria, and their children, who now create artworks with the technology and aestheticism suited to today’s demands.

Tie-dyeing is a special branch of dying crafts, which became an established art form at the end of the 18th century and denotes the reserve technique of applying hand pressing and textile dyeing using indigo and indanthrone.

The traditional tie-dying craft was listed in the Hungarian National Register of Intangible Cultural Heritage in 2015 and in the UNESCO Intangible Cultural Heritage List in 2018. In 2019, in line with the decision of the Hungarian Committee for Hungarikums, the Collection of Hungarikums: Collection of Hungarian Values – a list of Hungarian “products” representing the high performance of Hungarian people thanks to the typical Hungarian attributes, uniqueness, specialty and quality of these products – was expanded with the craft of tie-dying.

For further information, please visit the website of the Hungarian Academy of Arts’ Section of Folk Art.