Szilágyi András (szerk.): Ars Decorativa 25. (Budapest, 2007)

Piroska ÁCS: Kálmán Györgyi (1860-1930), Heart and Soul of the National Hungarian Applied Arts Association

year that the general public could first officially use the building of the Museum of Applied Arts, which had been inaugurated in the October of the previous year.) In the interests of success, the Association used the columns of the periodical Magyar Iparművészet to encourage craftsmen to take part. Hungary’s cultural ministry instituted a 500- franc gold exhibition medal, while the Association allocated 400 crowns as prize money for outstanding pieces. In 1899, new thinking appeared in the organising work: the Museum arranged a well-to-do middle- class apartment on the left-hand side of its Glass Hall. Every item for this apartment was designed by artists mindful of the requirement that these items had to be inexFig. 6 Gentleman’s study, Christmas Exhibition and Fair, 1899

Designed by Pál Horti; executed by Izidor Kőnig Photograph published in Magyar Iparművészet 1900, p. 6.

Fig. 5 Screen, 1896

Design: Géza Györgyi; frame: Károly Kacséra;

embroidery Mária Konderth

Height: 155 cm; width: 96.5 cm

Museum of Applied Arts, Budapest. Inv. no.: 14956

pensive (Fig. 6-7).w The Christmas exhibition and fair of 1900 was a little less successful, since the energies of designers and craftsmen alike were taken up by participation in the Paris World Exposition of that year. In the years that followed, two tenFig. 7 Drawing room, Christmas Exhibition and Fair, 1899

Designed by Frigyes Spiegel; executed by the cabinetmaker Vilmos Bányai and the upholsterer (J.) Roth Photograph published in Magyar Iparművészet 1900, p. 22.

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