Szilágyi András (szerk.): Ars Decorativa 25. (Budapest, 2007)
Piroska ÁCS: Kálmán Györgyi (1860-1930), Heart and Soul of the National Hungarian Applied Arts Association
was the daughter of a physician.3 After completing secondary school, Kálmán continued his studies at the Technical University of Budapest. He then proceeded to the Academy of Fine Arts, likewise in the capital, where he was awarded a drawing instructor’s certificate in 1882. Two years later, in 1884, he was appointed to the teaching staff of the Budapest School of Design/ where he became head of the public drawing course (women’s section). It was he who laid the foundations for modem drawing instruction and art education in Hungary.5 The other major part of his work was connected to the applied arts. In 1894, he was appointed to the post of secretary of Hungary’s Applied Arts Association.6 In 1902, he became its secretary-general and in 1906 its director. Furthermore, in 1897 he became senior staff member and deputy editor of the periodical Magyar Iparművészet (‘Hungarian Applied Arts’). In 1910 he moved up to the position of editor of this journal, an office he occupied for twenty years.7 After the Austro-Hungarian Compromise of 1867, artistic craft products from France and Austria flooded into the country. The standard of Hungarian applied arts products was dubious. A pledge for change came with the establishment of three closely co-operating institutions: the National Hungarian Museum of Applied Arts (founded 1878), the Royal National Hungarian School of Applied Arts (founded 1880) and the National Hungarian Applied Arts Association (founded 1885). All came into being during Ágoston Trefort’s time as Hungary’s cultural minister. Their co-operation was assisted by the fact that from 1896 onwards they functioned in one building: the Museum of Applied Arts palace on Üllői út. While the Museum had the role of indicating worth and providing examples by way of its collections, the School undertook the training of future generations of applied artists and the Association facilitated the encouragement and measuring of contemporary efforts. One of the Association’s tasks was to energise applied artists and broad strata of society in those areas in which the influence of the Museum had spread only slightly. By announcing competitions in which prizes were awarded, by preparing designs and by placing orders, it encouraged creative artists. It mediated, purchased and sold works of art; it could handle freely the financial resources placed at its disposal. It was this work that Kálmán Györgyi joined in 1894. His first important task was to organise the applied arts presentation for the Millennial Exhibition of 1896/ The Association had already acquired a name for itself by supporting presentations by small craftsmen through advancing interest-free loans. Since generally speaking the technical abilities of these craftsmen were unimpeachable, it was their taste that the Association attempted to improve, by providing appropriate designs. In the preparation of these, it not only relied on those artists and teachers who had already demonstrated that knowledge in the field, but also attempted to enlist as many Hungarian designers as possible, by way of invitations. In a paper on the upcoming exhibition, Kálmán Györgyi emphasised that the Association and he personally especially respected those works that were free of the constraints of the Historicist style, but not mere copies of modem foreign products or characterised by a pursuit of novelty for its own sake; the creations most favoured were those that attempted to find a clear and at the same time national character in accordance with the spirit of the age.9 The material collected together by the Applied Arts Association for the Millennial Exhibition was placed in a freestanding 136
