Prékopa Ágnes (szerk.): Ars Decorativa 32. (Budapest, 2018)
Piroska NOVÁK: On the porcelain designer career of Éva Ambrus
PIROSKA NOVÁK ON THE PORCELAIN DESIGNER CAREER OF ÉVA AMBRUS Ceramic artist Éva Ambrus graduated from the porcelain department of the Hungarian College of Applied Arts in 1967.' From 1967 to 1984 she worked first as a designer and then, from 1978 onwards, as artistic director of the Alföld Porcelain Factory. At one time, Éva Ambrus’s tableware was used almost exclusively in Hungarian households and food service establishments; in fact, to this day some of these objects are still manufactured and sold. In March 2017, Éva Ambrus donated the Ceramics and Glass Collection of the Museum of Applied Arts a collection of objects significant with respect to the Hungarian silicate industry and the history of Hungarian design.2 This generous gesture was the impetus behind this summary, or overview, of her career as a designer. The objects given to the museum do not merely serve as a pretext, but are also a source for this article, along with Éva Ambrus’s manuscript3 on the history of Hungarian ceramics and the fine ceramics industry from the 1960s to the 1980s. The third main source for this article was a personal interview with Éva Ambrus conducted by the author.4 Éva Ambrus was born in Budapest in 1941. After finishing secondary school and passing her leaving exams, she spent three years as an apprentice and later porcelain painter in the Óbuda (Aquincum), later Kőbánya Porcelain Factory. She had been unable to apply to the Hungarian College of Applied Arts immediately after secondary school because, on 4 April 1957, due to political reasons, she and a classmate refused to wear the uniform required on special occasions. As a result, she was barred from studying at institutions of higher education. Finally, in 1962, she was accepted to the college’s porcelain design department with a scholarship from the Herend Porcelain Manufactory. In 1949, the porcelain design department, initially headed by Herend Porcelain Manufactory designer István Lőrincz, was established within the main faculty of decorative sculpture at the Hungarian College of Applied Arts.5 In 1960 a new curriculum was introduced that better met the real, everyday demands of the time with respect to the socialist state’s planned economy and the needs of consumers.6 The reorganized faculty had two departments: porcelain under the direction of Imre Schrammel and ceramics under the direction of Árpád Csekovszky. Schrammel offered the following recollection of both this defining period and Éva Ambrus’s class:7 ‘In 1958, I had just received my diploma and I was appointed to head the porcelain department. Before that, the making of typical decorative porcelain had been taught in keeping with the traditions of Herend. In 105
