Mrs Valeria Fulop-Pochon

Valéria Fulop-Pochon completed her MA in 2016 and has been a History of Art PhD candidate (part-time) at the University of Bristol since 2018. Valéria’s doctoral thesis investigates the opportunities and restraints of Hungarian modernist women artists between c.1930 and c.1960, in the context of Hungary's geopolitical transition to the Soviet sphere. Valeria investigates women artists working in exile, emigration and state-support.

Valéria has research interests in:

- Transnational modernisms, modernist women artists, twentieth-century art and design in Europe and beyond its borders 

- Representations of trauma, identity, gender and sexuality

- Cold-War visual cultures

- women artists in exile and emigration

- women artists and state-support

- Socialist Realisms

- Intersections of folk-art, indigenous art, applied art and fine art

- Socialist women's movements and peace-activist art and craftivism

 - Hungarian visual arts and cultures

- Ceramic art and painting

PhD student, Department of History of Art (Historical Studies), University of Bristol

Thesis Title: 
Hungarian Women Artists’ Opportunities and Restraints c. 1930-1960: Towards Autonomy and Representations of Identity

My thesis investigates the opportunities and restraints of Hungarian modernist women artists between c.1930 and c.1960, in the context of Central Europe’s geopolitical transition to the Soviet sphere. My arguments will be constructed via three specific case studies of Hungarian women artists from the period under investigation: the sculptor-ceramicist Margit Kovács (1902-77) and the painters Margit Anna (1913-91) and Judit Reigl (1923-2020). I shall explore the trajectories of the state-supported/popular artist (Margit Kovács), the blacklisted/inner émigré artist (Margit Anna) and the dissident/émigré artist (Judit Reigl). The thesis argues that the shift towards the global political networks of communism in 1945 impacted the production, dissemination, and reception of the work of my selected women artists, both within Hungary and beyond its borders. 

 My thesis aims to contribute to arts expanded histories by exploring forgotten female subjectivities within European modernisms. I argue for the re-assessment of the dominant Cold War register by emphasising the effects of gender politics, religion and citizenship in women’s creative activities. Furthermore, I argue that besides binaries of ‘official versus counterculture,’ a heterogeneous range of artwork was created by Hungarian women artists who sought to pursue creative independence and explore issues of gender, identity and trauma in their artworks against the grain.