Prékopa Ágnes (szerk.): Ars Decorativa 29. (Budapest, 2013)
In memoriam Géza Fehérvári
IN MEMÓRIÁM GÉZA FEHÉRVÁRI (EGER, 1926 - LONDON, 2012) For a long time, Géza Fehérvári was a living legend to me: I knew that he had worked at the Ferenc Hopp Museum of Eastern Asiatic Arts as a young man, that he had to leave Hungary in 1956, and that he taught at the leading centre for oriental studies, the University of London’s School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS). I was also aware that from time to time, he presented our museum with valuable objects. When we got acquainted, he happened to be bringing a 12tl'-century Persian jug as a gift to his old workplace, with which he always tried to remain in contact. After World War II, he started learning Turkish and Arabic at the Oriental Institute of the Technical and Economic University in Budapest, as a student of Gyula Germanus. After the institute was closed, he followed his professor to the Faculty of Humanities of Pázmány Péter University (now ELTE), where he pursued Arabic Studies and Museology. He studied Arabic with Károly Czeglédy, Persian with Zsig- mond Telegdi, and oriental art with Tibor Horváth and Ervin Baktay. However, he was most influenced and impressed by his “grandfatherly” professor, Gyula Ger- manus. After finishing university, he managed to secure a job, with Germanus’ help, at the Hopp Museum. Together with Edit Egyed Diószegi, his job was to survey middle-eastern objects in the collection. In 1955, he participated in the organization of a major exhibition dedicated to the art of the Near East, held at the Museum of Applied Arts. Soon after, he was transferred there. During the 1956 Uprising, he was a member of the revolutionary committee set up in the museum, and thus had to flee to Austria. He took with him a photo of his museum room, heavily damaged by shelling during the battles. A year later, he began his postgraduate studies at SOAS of the University of London, in the department of Islamic art history and archaeology under the guidance of professor David Storm Rice. He finished his doctoral dissertation in 1960, and after the death of Rice, he was appointed lecturer in 1963. During his research trips to the Middle East, he led excavations in Iran (1971-1976), Libya (1977-1981) and Egypt (1985-1987). His numerous scholarly works include a book dedicated to Islamic ceramics in the Barlow collection; another monograph dealing with metalwork in the famous Islamic collection of his friend, Edmund de Unger; as well as his survey of Islamic art, 119
