Egon Lovith and Marton Izsak in the Soviet Union

This photo was taken in the Soviet Union, when I was traveling with some artists from Bucharest, on behalf of the Fine Arts Union. I'm the first from the left in the second row. Next to me, a little ahead of me, the first man from right, is Marci Izsak, the excellent sculptor from Vasarhely. This photo must have been taken either in Moscow or in Leningrad.

They took us from one town to the next, and we saw monuments and museums and met Soviet artists. They showed us Institutes of Fine Arts over there and they introduced us to the students. In general we had some Soviet guides who came with us everywhere we went, because they didn't let a group of Romanians wander around in the Soviet Union by themselves.

If there was something happening in France, Hungary or Germany, they never sent us there [then it was mostly Romanians who traveled]. For instance, I was sent to Czechoslovakia and I had to write a report afterwards about what kind of things I suggested after my visit. I wrote about my visit at the ceramic department and about how it was organized. I gave suggestions for how the ceramic industry could be mechanized here in Romania as well and I told them how the teachers and their students could help out with most of this work, and the profit would be the Institute's. They got angry with me for coming up with such a suggestion and they believed that it should be the Party or the Ministry who should decide about the future of any incoming profit and not the institute. I only heard that they were really angry, but they didn't write anything to me, so they just simply didn't respond to my suggestions.

Photos from this interviewee