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

Piroska ÁCS: Kálmán Györgyi (1860-1930), Heart and Soul of the National Hungarian Applied Arts Association

PIROSKA ÁCS

KÁLMÁN GYÖRGYI (1860-1930), HEART AND SOUL OF THE NATIONAL HUNGARIAN APPLIED ARTS ASSOCIATION

‘I remember when in 1894 my late father Kálmán Györgyi brought home two packets of documents and carefully put them inside his writing-desk, which at that time was still very new. With the curiosity of a child, I was interested in the secrets of the new desk. And when I got to know that the archives of the Applied Arts Association were inside, I felt that my father must be very important. So he was, as shown by his work, which continued at an undiminished pace for almost forty years. The documents were few in

number, since they fitted into two drawers. But these papers documented difficult, foundation-laying work he had performed over a number of years’ (Fig. 1)} These few lines, by the architect and professor Dénes Györgyi, remind us that the activity of his father, Kálmán Györgyi, in the Applied Arts Association was of great importance.

Kálmán Györgyi was born in Budapest on 7 March I860.2 His father, Alajos Györgyi (Giergl) (1821-1863), was a painter. His mother, Amália Haliczky (1836-1914),

Fig. 1 Kálmán Györgyi and his family in front of the writing-desk containing the papers of the Association

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