The 1911 Home Design Exhibition of the Hungarian Applied Arts Association

In 1911, the Applied Arts Association held its exhibition in the Technological Industry Museum, its new venue after a long break. The overall plan for the exhibition was the work of applied artist Bálint Fehérkuthy. The Association had drawn up a specific objective for the exhibition: to display homes that, within reasonable limits, met the demands of every level of wealth. The exhibits were thus arranged into one five-room dwelling, one of three rooms, two of two rooms and one bachelor flat. Several designers contributed to the five-room house: Vass Béla (dining room and smoking cubbyhole), Dezső Meller (reception room), Antal Meyer (man’s study), Ferenc Vas (woman’s living room), and Artúr Lakatos (bedroom). The creators of the three-room house were Ödön Nemes, Jenő Mérő and Sándor Skuteczky. The most accomplished, artistically outstanding, and indeed refined design was achieved by Ede Toroczkai Wigand in a two-room dwelling to which he appended an entrance hall and kitchen. Together with these family homes was a bachelor flat by Bálint Fehérkuthy, who set out to create artistic surroundings for a well-to-do person living alone. Work by the “new warriors” of Hungarian applied art, such as refined polychromic silk batiks by György Kürthy and Mariska Vizváry, Viktor Tull’s leatherwork, embroidery by Elemér Szügyi, Margit Korponay Leszay and Gitta Gyenes Walleszné, bejewelled flower and fruit bowls made by Magyar Ezüstárugyár Rt. (Hungarian Silverware Factory) to designs by Kós Károly, Béla Wilfinger’s bronze statue designed by Szász, and Gyula Reményi’s shot-putter, Atléta, were arranged in glass cases in the corridors and on the walls.

Margitay E. 'Lakásművészeti kiállítás' in: Magyar Iparművészet 1911/9. szám, 372-374.

by Jessica Fehérvári