Szilágyi András (szerk.): Ars Decorativa 26. (Budapest, 2008)

Zsolt SOMOGYI: An Adaptable Applied Artist. Pál Horti's American Furniture

ZSOLT SOMOGYI AN ADAPTABLE APPLIED ARTIST PÁL HORTI'S AMERICAN FURNITURE* 7 am an artist interested in achieving industrial work of the highest practical worth and artistic excellency.' Prof. Paul Horti In Ars Decorativa 25, we reported on investigations into the work of Pál Horti in the United States and on the first findings of the research.

2 Study of items of furniture once belonging to Pál Horti that have since come to light and investigations performed in Cincinnati not long ago have added further details to the picture sketched of the artist's activity in the New World, even if numerous questions connected to it still remain unanswered. Artefacts left by Pál Horti's widow became accessible to researchers in the spring of 2007. Numerous ceramics and jewellery items, frames for mirrors and pictures, lamps, exhibition medals, a few drawings, and a suite of furniture had passed from the wife of the artist to their present owners, who, out of respect for Horti's memory and the artefacts themselves, held the bequest and at the same time took good care of it, even during the Second World War and the difficult decades subsequently. At the present moment we have a little data concerning Horti's wife. In a letter sent from the United States, the artist wrote the following: 'I broke up my household, put my furniture and other things in store, and came out here with my wife, and with her * The author would like to express his special thanks to the family that is safeguarding the Horti bequest, to Eszter Illyés, and to Jeremy Cooper. Without their help, my research in Cincinnati could never have taken place. I'm making a round-the-world trip! Financially it's still not provided for...!'

3 Together the couple travelled to St. Louis, Missouri; from the periodical Magyar Iparművészet we even know the precise date of their departure from Budapest: 26 May 1904.

4 From another letter we know that after two years spent with him in the United States, Horti's wife returned to Hungary with works made by the artist. This was before Horti's fateful journey to South America and East Asia.

5 /. Interior with furniture made by the Shop of the Carfters. Private Collection, Budapest. Photo by György Kaczúr