S. Nagy Anikó, Rédey Judit: Az utca képeskönyve. Kereskedelmi plakátok és korabeli kritikájuk (1885–1945) (Bpudapest, 2006)

A SELECTION OF REVIEWS FROM THE PERIOD Gondos, Ignác. The Modern Hungarian Poster The Hungarian poster has already gained mention twice in this publication. (...) Hungarian poster artists have already proved their talent! If I want to be more precise then I have to speak about Budapest posters as cultural value and so art, literature, science and technology has one significant centre and that is Budapest. And these artists - beyond their own art - also call attention to the significance of Hungarian traders and manufacturers with their posters. The previously favoured "blankoplakat" (blank posters) can only be rarely seen nowadays. The public has needs that need to be satisfied and Hungarian poster artists do satisfy these needs. Why are they so popular? The public likes their artistically created and humorous posters and they secure the confidence of those who would commission them by dedicating their works to a certain profession that particularly interests them. Géza Faragó, who is one of our oldest and most popular poster artists, is never happier than when working with women's things. His preferred themes include fashion articles, toiletry items and music-halls. The Faragó poster draws attention because of its effective execution. His posters may not attempt immortality but they do manage to achieve the desired effect and that is more than can be said for a lot of oil paintings. We would be mistaken to think that Faragó does not have ambitions in other areas. This talented poster painter and caricaturist sits alone in his studio and dreams of the ideal of supreme beauty and this he creates with velvet-soft finesse although his hand is still driven by decorative art. He should be admired for the fact that dozens of exhibitions in Hungary do not shape public taste to anywhere near the same degree as his posters. Márton Tuszkay is the artist of the commercial world. The style of his work is provokingly honest and straight. This is accompanied by a lightness of technique ensuring that reproduction does not run into difficulty. The artist is characterised by determined tones and large surfaces. This also means that he is even capable of making good use of the basic shade of the paper.