The ‘beautiful’, the ‘good’, and the ‘true’ – three closely related concepts that, both in ancient Greek philosophy and at the birth of modern aesthetics, served as fundamental criteria for evaluating human and artistic achievement. Twentieth-century works and oeuvres undoubtedly called into question the formal and conceptual unity of these value-defining notions; yet, in the modern world, where people are ever searching, these words have once again begun to gleam. They also help orient us when assessing Hungarian fine and applied arts, encouraging the comparison of subjective achievement with objective circumstances.
The examination and recollection of Éva Ambrus’s personal achievement and oeuvre is instructive not only in that her works embody, in contemporary form, the ideals of the ‘beautiful’ and the ‘good’, but also in that they speak ‘truly’ of their era and of its possibilities. Her porcelain tableware, decorative objects, and public artworks represent ‘outstanding achievements’ of a socially and industrially progressive art realisable within domestic conditions. Taken together, they speak – in the language of industrial design, decorative sculpture, and ceramic art – about the past half-century itself: about how, in the daily contest between principles and practice, the eternal desire to create a world of useful and beautiful things, of ‘the good and the true’, could be realised, and to what extent.
Within the field of applied arts, the realisation of ideas is inherently closely bound to circumstances. A ceramic artist – whether working as an industrial designer or as a craftsperson in an individual studio – can never be as ‘free and independent’ as poets who fix their thoughts in words, or painters who trust in future recognition. In the realm of so-called ‘applied art’ and industrial design, which fulfil practical and intellectual functions simultaneously, the realisation of ideas and the creation of objects also depend on industrial, economic, and commercial possibilities. Both rationalism and idealism are necessary for the realisation of any conception; thus, the creators of objects are not only akin to fine artists, but also to architects, and must combine abilities characteristic of both.
The entire career profile and every work of Éva Ambrus testify that she was a ‘true’ applied artist and designer – one who chose a career path suited to her own creative personality. She was guided primarily not by ‘self-expression’, but by the ‘service’ of shared values; alongside her unbroken idealism, her work was characterised by rationalism. With full awareness of the given situation, building from available possibilities, she always worked for the realisation of ‘beautiful and good’ principles. It was this rational idealism that made her one of the most significant figures in Hungarian industrial design – first in the initial phase of her career, and later as well.
Among the most important and exemplary achievements of the most recent (and brief) heroic age of the Hungarian fine ceramics industry are all of Éva Ambrus’s designs intended for industrial mass production. These include her degree project at the Iparművészeti Főiskola (College of Applied Arts), as well as the prototypes and manufactured vessels created during the one and a half decades she spent working as a designer and artistic director at the newly established Alföldi Porcelángyár (Alföld Porcelain Factory) in Hódmezővásárhely. Unfortunately, these works can hardly be described as ‘typical’ or generally characteristic of domestic production – their importance lies precisely in the fact that they are authentic materialisations of the progressive principles that were then (once again) striving for recognition.
In the 1950s and 1960s, the institution of higher applied arts education had not yet borne the name of László Moholy-Nagy; it was simply referred to as a college. Yet a truly ‘academic’ standard was ensured by outstanding artist-teachers such as Frigyes Pogány, Miklós Borsos, István Gádor, and later their own students, who taught ceramic and porcelain art – among them Árpád Csekovszky and Imre Schrammel.
During the period dominated by the cultural-political expectations of ‘socialist realism’, they could not openly proclaim the principles of the founders of modern (industrial) art. They could scarcely speak about the examples of the Vienna Wiener Werkstätte or the Bauhaus of Weimar and later America, nor about the work of their many Hungarian participants – yet they represented, continued, and transmitted their spirit to their students.
After 1956, the now unavoidable demand to improve living conditions also required the revitalisation of Hungarian applied arts. Even under difficult circumstances, representatives of ceramic art became pioneers, once again able to create in both of their main fields of activity. For those choosing individual workshops, the cloak of ‘decorative art’ provided some freedom for applying the forms of artistic ‘isms’ and for the unfolding of individual character. Membership in the Művészeti Alap (Art Fund), the needs of architecture and the expectations of architects, as well as the modest but real opportunities offered by the Iparművészeti Vállalat (Applied Arts Company) and the Képcsarnok Galériák (Képcsarnok Galleries), allowed for creation and livelihood.
Meeting the genuinely mass demand for objects of everyday use, however, proved a more complex and difficult task. The training and integration of designer-artists into production, and the development of the technical conditions of light industry, offered numerous possibilities. Results were achieved, yet considerations of economic efficiency and commercial success – despite two decades of struggle – ultimately overrode principles. In the 1960s and 1970s, many attempted (again, as a continuation of earlier work) to realise solutions that were modern and truly ‘social’, that is, not merely serving social needs but elevating them to the rank of art. Figures such as János Grofcsik, who – as a chemical engineer – had been concerned since the 1920s with transmitting achieved results, or Ádám Habuda, chief executive officer of FIM (Fine Ceramics Manufacturing Company), who served development both technically and artistically, worked together with the professionals of the Iparművészeti Tanács (Applied Arts Council), established in 1954 at the suggestion of László Juhász. This collaboration – now almost forgotten and insufficiently appreciated – created a professional alliance that went beyond empty slogans. Admittedly, their results were often presented only in exhibitions. Their plans, models, and writings projected an imagined world, yet they did so factually – on paper, in models, prototypes, and sample implementations leaving behind lessons that are neither forgettable nor exhausted.
The young Éva Ambrus belonged to this intellectual circle, along with numerous talented and successful yet almost entirely forgotten colleagues. Her degree project, too, was ‘perfect’ – and neither she nor her fellow graduates, Miklós Eőry or Károly Szekeres, can be blamed for the fact that the architectural cladding systems they designed, demonstrated in prototypes and composed of reproducible yet variable elements, were never installed on the thousands of panel buildings across Hungary. Economic conditions in Hungary did not allow for the kind of large-scale industrial production realised, for example, in Japan, in the automated factories of the INAX company. There, such variable and versatile cladding elements cover thousands of high-rise buildings in earthquake-resistant ways throughout the island nation’s cities. In Hungary, only an exhibition and its catalogue remain as ‘memories’, containing the cladding proposals of Miklós Eőry, Károly Szekeres, and Anikó W. Kálmán, along with a few prototype objects, supplemented by several experimental buildings in Pécs. Éva Ambrus’s own work composed of such variable elements could be installed on only a single building – the SZOT (National Council of Trade Unions) holiday resort in Gyula (today the café of the Fürdőszálloda (Spa Hotel) and thermal bath restaurant). It was later dismantled, without a trace.
This generation also designed utilitarian tableware, already during their college years. Many talented young artists undertook the difficult conditions of industrial design. Éva Ambrus fought for the realisation of the principles she had learned and embraced at the newly established Alföldi Porcelángyár (Alföld Porcelain Factory) in Hódmezővásárhely. Her prototypes and manufactured sets, with their simple yet refined forms, were adapted not only to the expectations of future users, but also to the technical possibilities of production and the workflow of factory manufacture. Among the achievements of twentieth-century ‘abstract’ art, the efforts and results of industrial design are rarely mentioned. Yet designs such as Bella–207 or Háztartási edénykészlet (Household Tableware Set) not only meet the requirements of modern design but also represent the artistic principles of modern geometric abstraction. Between 1967 and 1984, as designer and later artistic director of what was then the most modernly equipped Hungarian factory, Éva Ambrus truly became ‘the pioneer of large-scale industrial tableware design in Hungarian porcelain production’ – as Imre Schrammel wrote in Laudáció Ambrus Éva keramikusművész akadémiai székfoglalójához (lit. Laudatio for the Academic Inaugural Lecture of Ceramic Artist Éva Ambrus) (Magyar Iparművészet, 2014/8, pp. 28–30).
The prototypes combining many partial processes won professional recognition, and several received awards – yet not all fulfilled their intended function or entered production. The Bella készlet (Bella Set), with its genuinely beautiful vessels, achieved success even on the international market that discovered values behind the ‘Iron Curtain’. By the time the final Stabil készlet (Stable Set) was designed, however, foreign and domestic trade already tempted factory management towards cheap ‘ornamentation’. Sadly, the market interests of the highly regarded ‘Western models’ made use of Hungarian capacities in accordance with their own objectives. During the economic transformation following the political transition, in the years of privatisation, many factories dismissed their (own, domestic) designer-artists. Presumably, Éva Ambrus would also have had to leave her workplace in the 1990s, like so many of her colleagues. She anticipated this situation, however – for she always assessed possibilities in time. From 1984 onwards, she worked as an independent ceramic artist.
Even then, it was her perception of reality, her ‘rationalism’, that compelled this change – a change in the mode of ‘public service’. Instead of the ‘beautiful and good’ utilitarian tableware intended for ‘every table’ through modern industrial mass production, she chose public ceramic art as her field – works that could also be realised individually. Despite the change, she continued to pursue her original aims in her own workshop. By shaping community spaces, streets, and buildings, as well as the resting gardens of private homes, she sought – and knew how – to make everyday life more beautiful and liveable. She formed her public fountains, water features, and wall-mounted message-images in ways that were in harmony with the style-forming tendencies of twentieth-century modernism, while also taking into account the receptivity and aesthetic needs of the commissioning community.
It is widely recognised that the ‘receptive community’ and ‘future-shaping’ art were unable to synchronise even at the end of the nineteenth century, not even in France. Hungarian history, from the turn of the century to the turn of the millennium, created circumstances in which the ability to receive and experience modern forms and messages became the privilege of a narrow ‘intellectual elite’. The ‘clients’ possessing economic power and political authority rarely followed the artists’ ongoing ‘struggle for freedom’. The interpretation of sincere artistic messages was confused by contradictory events both between 1920 and 1940, and during the period from 1960 to 1990, which mitigated yet did not eliminate dictatorship. While many lectures were given on falsely sweet kitsch, those interested could encounter contemporary Hungarian art – closely related to Western art despite the ‘Iron Curtain’ – only in ‘tolerated’ exhibitions.
Éva Ambrus – like a true pedagogue – turned to forms of nature known and understood by everyone: the universally intelligible messages and organic shapes of plants, buds, flowers, and fruits, much as William Morris and his followers once did in preparing the ground for Art Nouveau and modernism. She monumentalised the motif through geometric abstraction. With her ordering works, she marked the centre of the space that surrounds us all – offering rest, joy, and tranquillity through her ceramic decorative fountains and water features, in the small gardens of a few enthusiastic private patrons just as in expansive public spaces. In Csurgó, Badacsony, along the Nagykörút (Grand Boulevard of Budapest), and in the Wekerle Estate alike, she conveyed the stylisation of modern art, making it loveable – for everyone. She innovated by also becoming traditional.
From the Greek words kalos (καλός), meaning ‘beautiful’, and agathos (ἀγαθός), meaning ‘good’, arose the concept of kalokagathia (καλοκαγαθία), an educational principle linking morality with beauty. The great question is whether this can still happen today – can art educate us? The answer is merely a modest piece of advice: yes, if we are receptive to it. The useful, everyday “applied” art of Éva Ambrus – her works interwoven with the traditions and innovations of ceramic art – clearly demonstrate this. They help us to live.
[2015]