Collections

175 snails, and yet not four! He will become a collector. 
Jenny Aspenwall Bradley

 

 

Senior was a true collector, in the sense that he enjoyed collecting for the sake of it, and he put together collections of all the four series of Goya's engravings - Los Caprichos, Los Desastres de la Guerra, Los Proverbios, and La Tauromaquia - as well as collections of "1000 Years of Naive Spanish Sculptures", and one of Spanish religious glass-paintings, the latter two presented below. Collecting can be fun, and Senior radiated with joy as he told me how he had been sneaking around Tangiers at night, pulling down bullfighting posters that in reality were La Tauromaquia engravings. I had a lot of fun as a collector as well - Senior's literary agent said the above about me as Senior proudly declared that I had started to collect snails - but as this collecting-thing was about to get the better of me, a friend told me "Andres, you are becoming a crook!" and that sort of jolted me out of my passion.

  • SPANISH SCULPTURES

    The sculptures here presented were last shown to the public in 1969. I, Andres Laszlo Jr., inherited them in 1985 together with a collection of glass paintings. I have since then sold the collection off "from below," so that today I am left with the 30 or so most attractive pieces, apart from 4 medieval polychrome Virgins. The tallas have been exhibited all over Europe, in Canada, and in the United States. The photo shows my father explaining something about the glass paintings to Juan Miro. These (45 or so) glass-paintings from 17th/18th Century) also are included in the collection). In 1969 the collection (131 pieces) was exhibited on "Galeri Jean-Francois Apesteguy Deauville". Today I have sold "the 100 least attractive" on Alcala Auctions in Madrid, and I am looking for a way to sell the remaining (the quality-part) together with the glass paintings. Below most of them are presented.

    The catalog (in translation) was titled "1000 Years of Primitive Spanish Sculptures"/The Andres Laszlo Collection" and can be viewed here. The collection has been "authenticated" by the then leading authority in the field,  Maria Luisa Gomez Moreno (my father arranged that) and later by the chief antiquarian at the Louvre in Paris (I did that around 1990). There were other catalogs, but these have been lost, so if you have one, please make contact. An evaluation of the collection from 1969 is available. As you can see on this website, I am about to start promoting my and my father's texts, and I am eager to the collection in order to finance this. Read More 

  • SWEDISH CRYSTAL

    I started collecting Swedish art glass as a way to become well-enough off to venture out on an all-the-things-a-man-should-have-done-project, but half way though the project, I was captured by the beauty of Swedish Crystal, and I even wrote a book about it (Svenskt Konstglas). It was fun when I tried to challenge Birgitta, the biggest actor on the market, by obsessively pursuing my desire to put together an excellent Orrefors collection during the 1980s. Of course, I failed – she was a billionaire, and I was a pauper, at least relatively speaking – but I still managed to put together a pretty good collection. However, I felt sad the day that I realized that I would probably never be able to afford to complete my collection, donate it to "Moderna Museet", and maybe get an “Andres Laszlo, Jr., Collection room” named after me; something I believe my father would have approved of and appreciated (and even have been a wee bit jealous of). Though I love Swedish art glass, especially Orrefors 1920 - 1940, I have started to sell off my collection, though I have so far managed to keep the best pieces. Read More

     

  • GLASSPAINTINGS

    The art of painting glass paintings has probably existed for nearly as long as glass panes have existed, which in the case of Spain brings it back to and past the middle of the second millennia. It was a trade (or, at its best, maybe a profession) that more often than not would call for an artist/artisan with an itinerant spirit because the painting of glass-paintings was strongly associated with the traveling artisans, and the chosen motifs were equally associated not only with religion but also with the naive/popular tradition of art that for nearly a millennia (early on, especially as sculptures) existed alongside more the more "legitimate" traditions, aligning themselves with mainstream European art styles.  Read More