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

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

openwork. The base supporting the cupboard part was created by Horti using lathe- turned elements. These elements - columns widening slightly in the middle and scored round below, above and in the middle - are identical to those we can see on a chair-back in a design from 1904 preserved at the Museum of Applied Arts, Budapest.

Horti’s working connection with Charles P. Limbert is proved not just by his furniture designs. The obituary on Horti published in the periodical Magyar Iparművészet was illustrated by graphic works produced by the artist during his time in America.24 Among these we find a 1905 New Year greetings card, a bank money-transfer form and an advertising card that were all made for the Limbert concern. The designer embellished all three drawings with products made at the factory.

Oscar Onken (1858-1948) began his business career as a manufacturer of picture frames. He started to address himself to furniture production after the St. Louis World Exposition. Judith Miller tells us that it was the latest achievements in the applied art that he witnessed there that prompted him to found his ‘Shop of the Crafters’ enterprise in Cincinnati, Ohio in 1904,25 while Leslie Green Brown is of the view that the spur for this was the Austrian and Hungarian pavilions specifically.26 It was at the exhibition that Onken met Horti, whom these authors mention as one of Onken’s most important designers. An important source for the co-operation between Onken and Horti is the product catalogue published by the Shop of the Crafters in 1906.27 An introduction to a facsimile edition published in 1983 was written by Kenneth R. Trapp, a researcher in the applied arts section at Cincinnati Art Museum.28 From the study we can learn the following about Onken’s career. He was a young man from a

6. Library Table No 335. Front the Shop of the Crafters, about 1906. Private collection

family of artists who founded his first company in 1880, one that dealt with the production of picture frames. In 1882, he established Onken & Co., and in 1889 the firm Onken & Vance. In an advertisement, the last-mentioned enterprise described itself as follows: ‘Manufacturers of Mouldings, Frames, Mirrors and Dealers in Etchings, Engravings and Art Goods’. It was in 1903 that the firm Oscar Onken Co. came into being. With this Onken already took steps towards the manufacturing of furniture, offering his customers pieces in the ‘Mission Style’. Finally, around 1905 the name ‘Shop of the Crafters’ made its appearance in the city documentation. Trapp’s study confirms that Onken and Horti met at the St. Louis World Exposition, and that the only Onken designer to whom we can put a name is Horti. In accordance with Morris’s principles, Shop of the Crafters furniture was made by hand, something that was reflected in the price also. Trapp cites the armchair as an example: ‘No. 33 the Morris Mission Chair was priced at $42, a handsome sum in 1906 when a day’s wages for a working man were commonly only a dollar or two.’29 Despite this, the furniture produced by the

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