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

Zsolt SOMOGYI: Pál Horti's Late Works in the United States of America

ZSOLT SOMOGYI

PÁL HORTTS LATE WORKS IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA*

Pál Horti was an outstandingly talented applied artist from the period around 1900. The year 2007 is the centenary of the artist’s death at the age of forty-two. In a monograph published in 1982, Judith Koós attempted to evaluate Horti’s career, which was short yet very rich in output.1 Up until now, researchers have examined in detail only Horti’s activity in Hungary: the artist’s work in the United States between 1904 in 1906 is still known just fragmentarily. However, from the sources at our disposal we can put together a picture of this work, albeit one which - for the time being - is incomplete and full of unanswered questions.

Striving for international recognition, Pál Horti worked in many fields of applied art, in nearly all of them in fact. In the spirit of Gesamtkunstwerk endeavours, which grew stronger in the years around 1900, he designed, in accordance with the ideals of the Secession, furniture, carpets, textiles, wallpaper, stained glass, metal artefacts, items of goldsmith’s work, ceramics, and complete interiors. He also performed significant work in the fields of graphic art and book art. Only a part of his outstanding oeuvre survived the two world wars and the decades of socialism. For these reasons it may be important to research the work performed by Horti in the United States, where it is possible to identify many pieces of furniture, and perhaps other applied arts artefacts, designed by him.

Horti owed his international career to his participation in the world expositions of the

time and to the successes he achieved there. At the Paris World Exposition of 1900, he won two gold medals and one bronze medal.2 The installation for the Hungarian group at the Turin ‘First International Exhibition Of Modern Decorative Art’ in 1902 was designed by him.3 Hungary did not take part at the Chicago World’s Fair held in 1903, and for a long time its participation in the St. Louis exposition was doubtful. This last event was, however, postponed by the organisers to 1904, with the result is that Hungary’s National Applied Arts Association undertook preparations for it, although Hungary did not build a pavilion of its own. Horti was among those who joined the committee formed in June 1903 for this event. Later on, in the Association’s invitation-only competition, in which the architects Zoltán Bálint and Lajos Jámbor, Ödön Faragó, Géza Maróti, and Ede Wie- gand took part as well as Horti, it was Horti who won the right to plan the installation and to arrange the material exhibited.4 Visitors to the exhibition space of the National Applied Arts Association’s presentation - covering 500 square metres, it was accommodated in the hall of the Manufacturers’ Building - entered through a ‘Székely’ gate. Taken as a whole, the installation recalled the atmosphere of a Transylvanian manor- house, but represented an ensemble somewhat at variance with the aristocratic

* I should like to thank Gabriella Tarbay for drawing my attention to this area of research.

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