József Kótai’s creative career and his search for an individual artistic path began in 1963, following the completion of his studies at the Iparművészeti Főiskola (College of Applied Arts). Just as the figure of Miklós Borsos and his school-forming sculptural practice exerted a decisive influence during Kótai’s higher education, so too did this intellectual legacy provide the foundations for the creation of his own autonomous artistic world. This continuity reveals a defining trait of Kótai’s character: a consistent and tenacious loyalty to those values, individuals, situations, and formative forces whose quality he has recognised and to which he once consciously committed himself. This is equally true of the workshop that provided the material conditions for his practice, the Iparművészeti Vállalat Ötvös Stúdiója (Goldsmith Studio of the Applied Arts Company).
First creative period (until 1988)
During the first phase of his artistic career, in the more than ten years following the completion of his studies, József Kótai consistently produced utilitarian and decorative objects – including candlesticks, boxes, and wall ornaments – which were marketed through the retail network of the Képcsarnok. His work during this period was significantly shaped by commercial considerations and by the requirement to accommodate consumer taste, as articulated to the artist by the distributor.
A different form of external expectation was represented by an investor commission that led, in 1966, to the creation of a decorative surface measuring one and a half square metres, formed by repoussé work in brass and copper sheets, installed within the interior of the Orvostovábbképző Intézet (Postgraduate Medical Institute).
He experienced the restoration commissions he received in the early 1970s as a further opportunity for artistic exploration: the restoration of György Vastagh’s sculpture Csikós (lit. Horseherd, 1970) and of the Esterházy chairs of the Iparművészeti Múzeum (Museum of Applied Arts, 1972).
In the object-making and object-handling practice associated with these tasks, however, demands for the understanding and interpretation of reality emerged with increasing force alongside the necessity of earning a living. Daily engagement with the materials of goldsmithing, an ever more intimate understanding of their nature, and the steadily accumulating personal experience of their malleability raised not only questions of usability and the fulfilment of practical function, but also compelled the artist to interpret the worldview-related memories embedded in, or preserved by, patterns of use, as well as newly arising experiences.
A clear manifestation of this intellectual process can be seen in the consistent emergence, on utilitarian and decorative objects, of figurative motifs exhibiting increasingly pronounced sculptural qualities.
From 1975 onwards, he produced silver figurines measuring less than 10 cm using centrifugal casting and the ancient technique of lost-wax casting. Within the compositional field of force of these works, utilitarian function is subordinated to a reality-interpreting message, assuming its role only in dependence on that expressive intent.
The miniature sculptures depicted allegorical figures representing various crafts – such as carpentry, pottery, and glassblowing – as well as biblical figures or saints, most notably Saint Eligius, bishop and patron saint of goldsmiths, all rendered in an unequivocally grotesque mode.
The emergence of the miniature silver sculptures marked such a decisive turning point in József Kótai’s creative career that they must be regarded as the opening of a new period. A particularly clear manifestation of this autonomous artistic outlook is the silver Keresztelő tálka (lit. Baptismal bowl), produced in 1978 using the lost-wax casting technique. The circular form, measuring 12 cm in diameter, contains at its centre a surface deepening into a shallow bowl, within which the figure of Saint John the Baptist is positioned as a vertical sculptural element rising along the diagonal axis to the height of the rim. His staff reiterates the same strict vertical direction – connecting heaven and earth – as the axis of the figure’s body. By contrast, the folds of his garment, articulated in horizontally emphasised, wave-like rhythms, evoke the water that is intended, in small quantity, to collect in the bowl; through its power of grace, however, this water nonetheless effects a linkage between dimensions of reality.
The silver figure Sámson, cast in 1981, also functions as a candlestick; however, the sculpture’s compositional conception places emphasis on the light of the spirit and its power rather than on physical strength. The element designed to hold the candle, positioned on Samson’s head, formally overlaps with the function of a halo, thereby drawing attention to the divinely determined nature of both his physical and spiritual existence.
At the end of this phase of his career, in 1988, he created a tinned copper communion set for the Reformed congregation of Ramocsaháza. These objects fulfil a concrete liturgical function, just as the baptismal bowl discussed earlier. In both cases, their distinctiveness lies in the fact that practical function and reality-interpreting message appear in an organic unity within the objects, fully and inseparably identified with one another.
In parallel with the evolving intellectual and compositional relationship between utilitarian objects and small-scale sculptures, a new creative interest in a distinct genre emerged in József Kótai’s career during his second period, marked by the starting year 1975. Through his medals, he took part in the first Biennale of Medal Art, held in Sopron in 1977, and subsequently participated in all later exhibitions of the biennale.
In this genre as well, he consciously undertook the continuation of Miklós Borsos’s intellectual legacy. As a result, Kótai creates a sculptural experience on a predominantly circular ground in which three-dimensional figures are displaced from the security of perpendiculars and parallels, yet rise above their constraints and limitations. The circular base of the compositions, as a geometric symbol of completeness, sustains historical, mythological, or even everyday scenes transfigured into timelessness or into infinite space. Examples include works from the series commemorating Prince Eugene of Savoy and Saint Stephen, the paired figures of the Duó series, and Angyali üdvözlet (lit. Annunciation).
Second creative period (1988–1990)
In the second phase of József Kótai’s career, extending to the end of the 1980s, a significant number of large-scale commissioned works also appear, clearly demonstrating intellectual affinities with the world of small-scale sculpture and medals. In terms of scale the most spectacular, and chronologically the earliest, is the frieze created for the Szegedi Nemzeti Színház (Szeged National Theatre). Its realisation was not prompted by an elevated artistic or symbolic programme, but by a specific technical constraint: the visually intrusive ventilation ducts had to be concealed in a manner that did not interfere with mechanical operations and, moreover, allowed for occasional disassembly. A surface measuring 12 m in length and 70 cm in width was available for the composition. In accordance with architectural requirements, Kótai produced sixteen masks, constructed from etched elements and associated with different theatrical cultures. This motif relates to the world of theatre not only through its subject matter, but also by providing a framework for the formal and philosophical examination of issues central to the artist’s thinking, including the relationship between positive and negative forms and the temporal and spatial encounters of different dimensions of reality.
A further opportunity for the artistic rethinking of the mask theme was offered by the realisation of two gargoyles in 1981 and 1989 in Budapest’s 5th District, in Bank Street and Veres Pálné Street. Executed in cast bronze, these works involved a technical process that permitted a different conceptual approach from that employed in the theatre-related commissions. Situated in the heart of the city, their water-related practical function places them within a different philosophical context from that of their counterparts appearing within the autonomous sphere of art.
In 1989, József Kótai’s Cipész-cégér (lit. Shoemaker’s Sign) was installed in Kossuth Street in Eger. The tinned copper composition derives its distinctive internal tension from the fact that greater emphasis is placed on the ‘made’ quality of the shoemaker’s figure – that is, on its nature as goldsmiths’ work – than on the shoe held in his hand. Creative activity is thus not associated with the shoemaker figure who would ostensibly be responsible for it; instead, through an implicit reference to the practical technique of figure-making, another, unseen agent is introduced into the composition.
Among the commissioned works there are also pieces – as in the case of utilitarian objects incorporating sculptural elements – in which practical function and reality-interpreting message appear in the object in a manner that fully identifies the two. In 1987, the eternal lamp of the Nádor Crypt of the Magyar Nemzeti Galéria (Hungarian National Gallery) was produced in copper; in 1990, the baptismal font and the eternal lamp of the Saint Joseph Church in Kaposvár were executed in copper, brass, and bronze.
Third creative period (after 1991)
In the third phase of his career, in the period following 1990, József Kótai undertook several restoration commissions: the Memorial Cross in Márianosztra (1991); the busts of Emperor Franz Joseph I and Queen Elisabeth in Gödöllő (1992); the reliquary of the Holy Right Hand preserved in Saint Stephen’s Basilica (1999); and the Sacrament House of Grábóc held in the Orthodox Collection in Szentendre (2001). In these works, he revisited the craft values of historical periods with the spirituality and reverence of the present day.
As the maturation of earlier creative processes, an interesting phenomenon can be observed in figurative works produced in the 1990s and in the period after 2000.
Among the numerous silver Saint Eligius compositions measuring approximately 8 cm in height, a 30 cm bronze work appeared in 1994, the so-called Sóstói Eligiusz (lit. Saint Eligius of Sóstó), created as a result of the time spent at the Sóstó artists’ colony. The increase in scale and the departure from the sculpture’s customary material convey a clear sense of experimentation and signal a novel mode of artistic expression.
Further related innovations can be observed in the figurative works cast in 2000, Varga Péter bemutatja a Vezekényi tálat Szent Eligiusznak (lit. Péter Varga Presents the Vezekény Bowl to Saint Eligius), as well as in the two-figure composition Betlehem, produced in 2002 using the lost-wax casting technique.
In these works, the figurative motif is not associated with any utilitarian object, nor does the artist introduce any additional environmental element that would secure spatial or temporal identifiability beyond the viewer’s cultural and historical knowledge. As a result, they display an affinity with a worldview-related characteristic that defines József Kótai’s artistic universe across every phase of his career: the simultaneous presence of different temporal layers and spatial dimensions within a given sculptural situation. Although this characteristic is articulated through a variety of formal means, it is applied with consistent coherence in every instance.
In the earlier sculptures, the miniature figures alluded to a dimension of reality distinct from utilitarian function through their compositional relationship to functional objects, or this possibility was suggested by the structural characteristics of the space defined by those objects. This conception can be clearly illustrated by a simple content-related observation: in the figure of Saint Eligius, the facial features can often be recognised as those of one of the artist’s contemporaries.
In the case of the depiction of Péter Varga presenting the Vezekény bowl, the two figures, belonging to different historical periods, appear in two distinct bodies; however, the proportional relationships among the elements of the composition indicate that their spatial encounter requires not merely the bridging of temporal distance between their lifetimes, but also the interconnection of the different dimensions of their existence.
In the silver sculpture Betlehem, the proportional relationship of the figures likewise departs strikingly from what is customary in visual experience. The bodily difference in scale between parent and child is intensified to an extreme degree, thereby compelling an interpretation that extends beyond the limits of physical reality.
Distortions of scale may also be understood as a distinctive manifestation of the grotesque sensibility that is fundamental to József Kótai’s art. Just as facial expressions, gestures, and the proportions of the human body as a whole appear in distorted form within his compositions, so too does this principle apply to the relative scale or spatial positioning of two figures in relation to one another. This mode of representation frequently elicits a humorous response from the viewer. If, however, one reflects further – in accordance with the very nature of humour – it becomes possible to identify the form of experiential knowledge of reality and of the world that Kótai renders palpable in his works through the magnifying lens of grotesque humour, by means of distorting internal relationships.
What does he articulate through the simultaneous validation of multiple perspectives? Which angles of vision are brought into overlap within his compositions? Those of distant geographical spaces and remote historical times? Those of personal inner experience and the external events of social reality? Those of a natural world presumed to be defined by perpendiculars and parallels, and of a supernatural reality that resists such constraint? József Kótai’s works are capable of setting these questions in motion within each of us, provided we dare to entrust ourselves, with inner sensitivity, to the impulses conveyed by the works themselves.