Gömöry Judit – Veszprémi Nóra - Szücs György szerk.: A Művészház 1909–1914, Modern kiállítások Budapesten (A Magyar Nemzeti galéria kiadványai 2009/2)

FÜGGELÉK - András Zwickl: "The House of Modern Art"

well have been the fact that founder and director of the society, Miklós Rózsa, resigned. It is not known when exactly he did so, but the autumn session already seems to have begun without him. It was probably owing to a shift in the power relations of the society, the progressive artists being pushed into the background. Rózsa's resignation could be sensed in the new exhibitions of the Artists' House. Following the applied-art show and occasioned by the third guest exhibition in Vienna, works by the masters of conservative Austrian salon painting filled the showroom of the Artists' House at the Wiener Kunstlerhaus Exhibition. How did these find their way into the rooms of the Artists' House

7 According to unanimous opinion, a letter offering an exchange exhibition to the Art Hall often called "Kunstlerhaus" in German was mistakenly delivered to the address of the Artists' House, which took the occasion by the forelock. This promoter and supporter of progressive art must have received the material of the Kunstlerhaus in the hope of a Vienna show. It had long been trying to present the work of its artists abroad, and the idea of mutuality had cropped up at the time of the Neukunstgruppe and the Bund shows, but nothing of it materialized. Nevertheless, the Hungarian reciprocating show proved to be just as unworthy of the original objectives of the society as the Austrian material had been. The Hungarian artists were provided with no more than four rooms in the framework of the 3.9

th Spring Exhibition of the Kunstlerhaus, and the exhibits betrayed a readiness to make grave compromises in order to achieve success in Vienna. The material included works by second-rate and conservative masters, too, and the modernists sent their earlier work out of cautiousness. Many pictures were loaned from museums; József Rippl-Rónai, Károly Kernstok and János Vaszary were represented by works already exhibited. On top of it all, these artists were the ones who being members of the jury rejected the works of such young progressives as Lajos Tihanyi and Róbert Berény - in the end, these latter ones put on their works at the Bruko Salon gallery in Vienna. It seemed that, in the fifth year of its existence, the Artists' House managed to accomplish the long-desired aim of arranging a major show of Hungarian art abroad. However, it had to pay too dearly for this by having to forego its original aim of supporting fresh, modern art. On top of it all, this apparent success came too late for salvaging the society on the verge of collapse. Having bought and reconstructed the palace, the society could not meet its massive debts. By the reports of the press of the time, the Artists' Club could not fulfil the high hopes attached to it. The Artists' House wanted to borrow a large sum of money, but, in order to do so, it would have had to obtain a promise from the Ministry of Culture to pay the annual 8,000-crown subvention for the coming thirty years. The unrealistic request that the delegation headed by novelist Ferenc Herczeg submitted actually backfired: Béla Jankovich revoked even the 8,000-crown grant. As a final step, the mortgaged palace was sold to Géza Teleki, the second lender in the original purchase, who however "let the society stay on in the building, did not evict the artist." As mentioned, Miklós Rózsa, the founder and director, the co-ordinator of the many activities of the society, had in the meantime resigned. It is difficult to assess the significance of the work Rózsa accomplished: he embodied a new type of art manager and cultural organiser that had not been known previously, and that can be likened to today's curators. Apart from elaborating the programme and administering the society, he conceived of, arranged and opened new exhibitions, delivered lectures, wrote art criticism. Making use of his wide range of social contacts, he managed the Artists' House, and made various attempts for financing it. He maintained close contacts with artists, collectors and other players of the art scene of the period. He put heavy emphasis on PR and marketing. He managed to achieve considerable publicity for the society in the press. Writings in the papers of the day witness that he would hold well-organised press conferences a day before exhibitions, for which he is likely to have prepared press packs; he thereby achieved that the programmes of the Artists' House were regarded as important social events, and that its activities were given continued press coverage. He even had an eye to make the representatives of the Artists' House appear as modern "media personalities", the press regularly publishing photos of the "officer corps" of the society and the exhibiting artists. Rózsa made use of disagreements for promotion purposes: thanks to press puffery, scandalous events repeatedly brought the Artists' House in the limelight, ensuring its wide-ranging currency. He also used press writings to demonstrate the prestige of the society, systematically collecting them, even publishing them in self-contained volumes for propaganda purposes. In spite of its short existence, the Artists' House under the leaderships of Miklós Rózsa did fulfil its calling: it very well introduced the most fresh Hungarian and international artistic aspirations to the Hungarian public; it aroused public interest in progressive trends, provided many artists with opportunities of appearing before the public, often bringing them their first successes. The lists of artists exhibiting at the Artists' House included names from all ranges of contemporary Hungarian art; moreover, artists belonging to different trends and groups exhibited their work together at its showroom: apart from