Bodon, Károly (1880 - 1944)

Applied artist and cabinet maker. Born in Sajógömör (Gemer, Slovakia), Károly Bodon started work in the workshop/factory of his father, also Károly. After graduating from the Hungarian Royal Public Secondary Industrial School, he produced his own plans in the studio of his former teacher, Ödön Faragó. In 1901, he won first prize in a competition for a middle-class bedroom run by the Applied Arts Association. In 1904, Károly Bodon and Son won a silver medal at the St. Louis World’s Fair. From press reports, we know that the younger Bodon worked for an extended period in Vienna and was a senior employee of the furniture factory headed by Zsigmond Járay, and then he moved to Berlin. Afterwards, he spent four years in Darmstadt, one of the artistic centres of the German Jugendstil. He was chief designer for the furnishings company Ludwig Alter I, and a large selection of his work there appeared in the magazine Magyar Iparművészet in 1908. He returned to Budapest in 1911, where he again teamed up with Ödön Faragó. His chief accomplishments before the First World War were designs for Hazai Bank in Budapest and the Nasici Tanning Works in Zagreb. In 1915, he won second prize in a competition to design a suite – a salon and twin bedroom – for the Gellért Hotel. After the war, he continued his interior design and furniture design work, notably for several restaurants and cafés. One of his last works was the fitting out of the Reformed Church in Szabadság Square in 1940. He organised many Hungarian and foreign exhibitions, and at the 1937 Paris World’s Fair, his plans for the Applied Art and Folk Art halls earned him the Diplôme d'Honneur. He died in Budapest in January 1944.