Gömöry Judit – Veszprémi Nóra - Szücs György szerk.: A Művészház 1909–1914, Modern kiállítások Budapesten (A Magyar Nemzeti galéria kiadványai 2009/2)

FÜGGELÉK - András Zwickl: "The House of Modern Art"

no mention of the Artists' House yet. Two weeks later the papers reported that Miklós Rózsa had requested the setting up of a committee to prepare the foundation of the club at a meeting of the general meeting of the society. The actual circumstances of founding the club can hardly be established now; it appears that the idea had cropped up independently of the Artists' House, but its leaders clearly saw a unique opportunity in it. According to several sources, the artists who had seceded from the Fészek Klub (Nest Club), members of the Japanese Table among them, had wanted to find a new place for themselves, and this seems to be corroborated by the fact that, apart from Géza Teleki and Gyula Andrássy, Pál Szinyei Merse and the architect Ödön Lechner were appointed to the preparatory committee. The establishment of the club, however, took a scandalous turn: according to press reports, the artists' club was to have been a front for an illegal gambling den, and that the Artists' House had already entered into negotiations with a Frenchman who would rent the club for the purposes of gaming. The leadership of the society denied the charges, libelled, but the papers later reported that several artists resigned - including Szinyei, Ferenczy, Elek Falus, Rippl-Rónai, Lechner, Iványi Grünwald, Csók, and Ligeti. The scandal came to a head at the statutory meeting of the club on the 30

n of December 1912, two camps sitting ready to clash. Rózsa proposed a new list of members for the preparatory committee, who were all men of the Artists' House, and who finally did establish the club following the objections and decamping by Szinyei and his associates. Wrangling went on until the spring of 1913, but the storm seemed to have blown over in the summer: names published on the occasion of the July general meeting of the Artists' Club attested that prominent members of Hungarian art life took part in its leadership. László Beöthy and Károly Kernstok were elected to vice-chairmanship; the board included well-known critics (György Bölöni, Andor Cserna, Pál Relie), art patrons (Count Géza Somssich) and artists (Vilmos Fémes Beck, Bertalan Pór, Márton Tuszkay). Among others, the following participated at the general meeting: József Rippl-Rónai, János Vaszary, Ödön Márffy, Lajos Tihanyi, Hugó Scheiber, Béla Kádár, Márk Vedres, and László Vágó. In the meantime, the exhibition programme of the Artists' House broke off because the reconstruction of the newly bought palace needed all the autumn season of 1912. The last show at the Kristóf utca showroom had been the annual unjuried exhibition and the retrospective of Mihály Bíró already mentioned. Apart from the types of exhibition already discussed, the Artists' House put on thematic and related estate exhibitions (e.g. Biblical Exhibition and The Artistic Remains of Károly Jakobey). It was a novelty at the time to exhibit not only the fine arts, but also applied arts and photography (e.g. Applied Arts Exhibition, 1913); art from outside Europe was also housed [Oriental Exhibition, 1911). Shows representing the art of other nations had a determining role in the pioneering, progressive programme of the Artists' House. Two genuinely international musters stand out from among them: the International Impressionist Exhibition (1910) and the International Post-Impress ion ist Exhibition, both of which presented the work of Hungarian and foreign artists together; the former borrowing exclusively from Hungarian collectors. Pointing far beyond its title, the impressionist Exhibition brandished the work of the representatives of even the latest aspirations: the Budapest art-loving public could marvel at not only Cézannes and Van Goghs, but also Matisses and Picassos. In 1913, the travelling Post-Impressionist Exhibition arranged by the Berlin Sturm Gallery displayed the work of a wide range of artists: Wassily Kandinsky, Robert Delaunay, Natalia Goncharova exhibited along with their Hungarian colleagues at the Budapest station of the show Austrian artists had a prominent role in the displays of foreign art. The January 1912 show of the Viennese Neukunstgruppe featured Egon Schiele and Oskar Kokoschka, too. In the spring of 1913, the Bund Österreischischer Künstler and Gustav Klimt was put on, which presented, apart from fine-art works, a significant applied-art material from the Wiener Werkstätte. In the January of 1913, a new chapter was opened in the history of the Artists' House. A new leadership was installed: Károly Kernstok was elected artistic vice-chairman, the former cultural minister György Lukács became patron vice-chairman, and the board included Marcell Nemes, Count Géza Somssich, József Szabó, and Márk Vedres At the spectacular PalaceOpening Exhibition in January 1913, the society made a demonstrative display of the work of its artist members. In his autobiographical novel, Lajos Kassák recorded the following on the event: "This was the time when the new palace of the Artists' House was opened in Szegfű utca. It has caused quite a stir; the papers have dug into the past of the society, and now detail the new, palace-like building; and the public flocks into the huge rooms on the day of opening. I went to the inauguration together with Uitz...Not even the general buzz could muffle Miklós Rózsa's voice He argued, burst out in sarcastic laughter, was enthused by the pictures, and battled with disbelievers. The gathering was like a rally. And it was this man of slight build and sweeping gestures that was to give the opening address. Life is throbbing around him, and he is its barker. Carried by the crowd, we could hardly stop for a moment's look in front of a picture, grasp with our minds the vastness of the material."