Art Deco Budapest/Poster Exhibition (1925–1938) of the Hungarian National Gallery, 6 February – 31 March. Liszt Institute Sofia, 16 Aksakov Str.
Often, when we analyse our art directions, we “close” them only in national terms – “Bulgarian style” and “native art” are typical examples of this. Perhaps because we recognise them as something unique, like our contribution to world culture. Is this really the case? Undoubtedly, on Bulgarian territory, they meet different international currents and styles; their individual traits and elements are mixed, and we call the alloy itself in this internally familiar way. That is why, until now, the relationship of Bulgarian fine art with the Art Deco style has somehow been overlooked or entirely excluded in our research.
But at the beginning of February (2025), an exhibition, modest in appearance, located in the two small halls of the Hungarian Cultural Institute List in Sofia presented a sample of posters from Budapest created in this style, known in the 1920s and 1930s.
The curator is Aniko Katona, who has selected 20 exhibits from a much larger retrospective held at the National Gallery in Budapest (2022). This exhibition has presented the Art Deco style in its various aspects and different types of art, mostly applied. At the exhibition’s premiere at the Hungarian Cultural Centre in Sofia, the curator led a tour of the displayed posters and introduced the guests to the peculiarities of the Hungarian poster of that time, its attitude to other arts, and the ideology on which it was based. Very precisely, she focused on specific important topics of the period: the modern woman, her lifestyle and modern habits, the cult of sports, cabarets, and jazz – these nests of never-ending joys and delights that mainly flew across the ocean, but infected the whole of Europe. The central theme of the posters is Budapest, more precisely, the capital of Hungary with its landmarks. They also discuss tourism as a business card of the country, folk traditions respected in the nation-state and used in poster culture. For Aladár Richter, Budapest is associated with the proud Gothic silhouette of the Parliament building and the Erzsébet Bridge on the Danube (1936),
For Ernő Jeges, Budapest is a wonderful place for a colourful spectacle of peasants in folk costumes and military in solemn uniforms against the backdrop of the Parliament (1938). National costumes are also an advertising tool on other posters – György Konecsni sees his native country as a beautiful, smiling peasant woman, given monumentally in a close-up with her picturesque Hungarian costume (1936).
In the poster of Gitta Mallasz – “Hungary” (1932), a little playful peasant boy with red boots, a felt hat, and a vestry peers, holding stalks of wheat and flowers in his hands. This good-natured boy, painted in generalised forms, with embroideries on his pockets, which resembles the shepherds by Vadim Lazarkevich, Ivan Milev, Bencho Obreshkov, Dechko Uzunov, most eloquently shows us how similar the processes are in the ideological narrative of the reviving small nation after the collapse of the Danube Empire and its allies in the Balkans during the First World War through the so beloved rural characters in our country. The plastic forms and performance styles in the posters are strikingly similar. As a counterpoint to the patriotic themes in which the image of Hungarian is embodied, the exhibition also presents posters with the other important character most used in advertising and the media – the woman. It as a universal symbol, here with its emancipation, effectively promotes cigarettes (László Claudinyi, Modiano, 1932, István Irsai, Triumph, 1942),
practices sport and fascinates with her revealing swimsuit (Aladár Richter, “We opened the pool of St. Gellert”, 1935),
has fun at the beach of Lake Balaton (Andor Bánhidi, “Balaton”, 1940),
gets into the image of the singing icon of those years, Jennifer Baker, who also visited Budapest (Tibor Réz-Diamant, “Royal Orfeum” – Baker, 1928),
is even present in a poster image that advertises… cement through the image of Venus de Milo.
A powerful symbol of these 20 peaceful interwar years is radio with the miraculous power of radio broadcasting. Radio speeds up time, and radio information reaches vast masses of people – two posters are dedicated to the popular radio “Orion” (József Bottlik, 1940s). In Botlik’s, the radio is personified as a man with a lyre, reminiscent of the famous Oscar statuette.
Why do we define Art Deco as an international style? Precisely because it is entirely recognisable not only on the poster. This style is born from the last setting rays of the Secession and can be seen in architecture, applied arts, interior design, fashion, jewellery, and more. It carries its beauty and refinement but not his innocent naivety and lavish vision. The Art Deco style is synthetic and minimised in the means of expression because it is aimed at the formula to achieve a rich and strong suggestion through only a little. That is why its imagery is reduced to oval and geometric or streamlined shapes, to sharp and overflowing shadows and lights on them. This brevity of style is accompanied by the elegance of the line and the silhouette. Achieving its effect, which strikes with chic and mundane brilliance, requires a summative vision, an accurate hand, and a well-built impact. Art Deco does not seem to care so much about the overall object as about the characteristic detail extracted and accented by the artist or designer, which characterises the object without thinking – such as the curled bundle of hair on Jennifer Baker’s forehead or her incredible smile. The style created this period’s high fashion and successfully applied fashion trends to different types of art. As another eclectic style, which, however, managed to become figuratively recognisable in various parts of the world, it combines elements of neoclassicism, secession/art nouveau, futurism, constructivism, and new objectivity (in painting). Its achievements will be used even in socialist realism in the USSR and the art of Hitler’s Germany. It looks omnivorous; it was “formalised” in 1925 when its name was invented at the International Exhibition of Decorative Arts in Paris. In other words, it is the collective work of many countries and their local visions of a new type of stylisation and style, in which there is a new life corresponding to the changes of the time. Different elements of the aforementioned artistic trends in art predominate in various countries, as well as various ideological messages. However, some constant signs of Art Deco remain basic – for example, the use of decorativeness and brevity of expression, along with the reverence for the detail and the role of the ornament as a part, which are more important than the whole. In architecture, Art Deco loves the arch, the pyramidality, the spires, the mounting of reliefs on the facades, and the giant decorative sculptures in synthesis with the flatness of the wall. It admires expensive natural materials, shiny surfaces, marble, granite, mosaic, glass, precious stones, gold, brass, and silk. It can be said that it is a style of the enriching middle class and its desire to live affluently, hedonistically, madly, and at fast speeds, inspired by cars, aeroplanes, and trains – the new symbols of that time.
Looking at the Bulgarian-Hungarian contacts from this period, we note that they are too minimal – they are limited to two visits by Bulgarian artists to the capital, Budapest, in the 1920s and early 1940s. But Szandra Miskedi – director of the Liszt Institute in Sofia – had tried to bridge the gap between the two countries by inviting art historian Teodor Karakolev to speak about the Bulgarian version of Art Deco. There was an unintentional dialogue that deserves to be continued in the future through conferences and guest exhibitions dedicated to art in Hungary and Bulgaria during the period between the two world wars. I was intrigued by the exhibition with the question, what is the place or impact of this powerful international style that has affected not only Europe and the Balkans but probably Bulgarian art as well? Because there is definitely something to think about concerning what was happening in Bulgaria at that time through the prism of Art Deco, to look at it from a new angle, to assess by comparison, to try to incorporate it into the then worldwide popular trend, and to see and interpret some differences with other countries.
If we disregard the well-established plays, almost all of the early Bulgarian supporters of the secession style went through Art Deco borrowings later – I will mention the name of Haralampi Tachev from the old decorators. On the other hand, the young people of the 1920s and 1930s – rejecting the secession as hopelessly outdated – went straight to its late/last (?) Art Deco phase through their own more Bulgarian variations. Parting with it was really difficult, slow, and gradual, for which there are reasons. This is especially evident in architecture – the early works of Viktoria Angelova-Vinarova, the tandem Tsolov-Vasilyov, in the illustration – Vadim Lazarkevich, Ivan Milev, Iliya Beshkov, Georgi Atanasov, in the poster – Ivan Penkov, Dechko Uzunov, Mario Zhekov, in the decorative sculpture and small sculpture – Mihaylo Parashchuk, Pando Kiselinchev, Lyubomir Dalchev, in the monumental murals, stained glass, and mosaic – Ivan Penkov, Dechko Uzunov. Their evolution is remarkable, multifaceted, and consonant with the waves of the period, but so far, we have defined their works as “modern classics” or under the sign of their birth. Through the focus of the Art Deco style, however, they transcend the regionalism of the Balkans and invite us to see the universal points of contact with their modernity, as the Hungarian art historians and curators, as well as other colleagues from the Balkan countries, have done. That is why this exhibition should have its Bulgarian continuation. Despite the ruins of Sofia from World War II, despite the misunderstanding of this art from the subsequent totalitarian period, and despite the sloppy nature and the destruction of valuable artefacts today. Why shouldn’t we dream of an international Art Deco exhibition, in which we are not omitted this time?
