NMWA Director Susan Fisher Sterling said, “This acquisition is an important addition to our collection of European Modernism. Keserü’s assemblage provides a wonderful complement to our core collection of American feminist art.”

While not well known in the United States, in Hungary Keserü has enjoyed an outstanding reputation developed over 50 years. She was among the Iparterv generation, a group of 11 artists, who in late 1960s organized exhibitions in cultural centers, university residences and public spaces. Their aim: to display their avant-garde art that was forced underground by the conservative cultural policy of the time. These exhibitions were the first steps of a modern Hungarian culture, which advocated personal creativity and innovation and a break from traditional artistic forms.

Not geographically circumscribed, Keserü has exhibited in Hungary, Poland, Germany, France, Finland, the United States and Italy. She studied painting at the Hungarian Academy of Fine Arts and her work can be seen in major museums and collections in Germany, France, Austria and Hungary.

Keserü works three dimensionally using textiles of different fineness and coarseness, string, ribbon, and other humble materials. She was influenced by the Arte Povera movement that began in the mid 1960s in Italy. She was also greatly influenced by the early feminist wave that swept through Europe (one might think of Magdalena Abakanowicz in Poland who also used such basic materials in her work and abstractly referred to the woman’s body). Keserü’s organic, sensual forms resonate with American artists who were working in a similar way, namely Lynda Benglis and Louise Bourgeois.

Born in Pécs, Hungary in1933, Keserü lives and works in Budapest, Hungary.

About NMWA

The National Museum of Women in the Arts (NMWA), founded in 1981 and opened in 1987, is the only museum dedicated solely to celebrating the achievements of women in the visual, performing, and literary arts. Its permanent collection contains works by more than 800 artists. The museum also conducts multidisciplinary programs for diverse audiences, maintains a Library and Research Center, publishes a quarterly magazine, and has organized 27 state committees. Nearly 120,000 people visit the museum each year, including thousands of young people who come with schools and scouting groups. The museum is located at 1250 New York Avenue, NW, Washington, DC, in a landmark building near the White House. It is open Monday–Saturday 10 a.m.–5 p.m. and Sunday noon–5 p.m. For information call 202.783.5000 or visit the museum’s Web site, www.nmwa.org.