László Vajda, blacksmith, folk applied artist, and Master of Folk Art, was born on 14 April 1953 on the left bank of the River Tisza, in Tiszaeszlár. His father advised him to learn a craft, as skilled trades had always been held in esteem by rural communities. Vajda himself initially aspired to become a fine furniture maker, yet he ultimately chose the blacksmith’s trade. He was apprenticed to Gábor Szép, a master craftsman of exceptional manual skill who also knew how to work well with his apprentices and who carried out his work within the local agricultural cooperative. The knowledge Vajda acquired there ultimately proved far more significant than the theoretical instruction he received at the vocational school in Rakamaz.
It was characteristic of almost every blacksmith’s workshop operating within the agricultural cooperatives across the country that, alongside producing traditional (rural) blacksmith works in the classical sense – horseshoes, iron fittings, cart components, and the like – they also repaired agricultural power and work machines, while undertaking welding and metalworking tasks as well. In Gábor Szép’s workshop, László Vajda, as an assistant, was able to gain hands-on experience across the full spectrum of ironworking. Later, as a qualified craftsman during his years of military service in Leninváros, he also mastered the techniques of bronze casting in the foundry workshop of the Tiszai Vegyi Kombinát (Tisza Chemical Works). As a result, from an early age he possessed a remarkably solid and wide-ranging professional foundation.
László Vajda grew up in a rural environment where blacksmiths were held in high esteem, and where their work was indispensable to almost every aspect of the peasant way of life; as a result, they occupied an important position within village society. The ironwork of carts, the fittings of doors and windows, hand tools made of iron, and ploughs were all once produced or repaired in the blacksmith’s workshop. From the end of the nineteenth century onwards, however, the work of village blacksmiths underwent a fundamental transformation. The appearance of factory-made products and new machinery in rural areas foreshadowed an era in which the blacksmith increasingly became a locksmith, mechanic, and welder as well. This period arrived swiftly: by the early twentieth century, blacksmiths were already acquiring the techniques of industrial production and the skills of the mechanical blacksmith.
During the period of collectivisation, this process accelerated even further. The mechanisation of agriculture – primarily through repair work – generated such a volume of tasks that classical blacksmithing all but disappeared. “As the horse disappeared, so did the horseshoe,” people would say at the time.
From childhood onwards, László Vajda was still able to encounter a material culture that, though no longer flourishing, was nevertheless still alive – one in which every utilitarian object and tool possessed its own system of proportions, its own repertoire of motifs and ornaments, and in which decoration carried meaning. Practical function and aesthetic value were inseparable. Eager to learn and open in outlook, the young blacksmith soon recognised that the dominance of mechanical blacksmithing could be counterbalanced through the rediscovery and making of traditional iron tools, ornaments, and implements that were slipping into oblivion. For him, this was of fundamental importance: it was the only way he felt he could secure his professional development, an aspiration that remained constantly alive within him.
The 1970s marked a period of collecting materials, learning, and self-education. In 1970, he enrolled at the secondary school in Tiszalök, where he completed his final examinations in 1974; meanwhile, from 1978 onwards he was already working at the Tiszalöki Vegyesipari Szövetkezet (Tiszalök Mixed Industrial Cooperative). In 1976, he took his master craftsman’s examination in blacksmithing in Debrecen, at the spring-smith workshop of Vaskó, thereby receiving his first major professional recognition from fellow practitioners. In 1978, he also obtained a qualification in welding, and from 1979 he accepted a position as a vocational instructor at the vocational training institute in Tiszavasvári.
He recognised only one truly effective method for passing on professional knowledge – the very one from which he himself had benefited: apprentices working alongside a master, actively participating in every phase of the work process. He considered it essential that apprentices should design the object being made, be able to draw it, dimension it accurately, and read technical drawings with confidence.
In contrast, he observed that within the curricula of vocational training schools, practical instruction was confined within meaningless frameworks, while theory was taught almost entirely detached from hands-on practice. As a result, students emerged with only a superficial knowledge of the trade and burdened by significant deficiencies. While he himself strove to make the craft engaging and meaningful for his students, the 1980s brought a series of decisive changes in László Vajda’s own professional trajectory. In 1983, he took part for the first time in a folk art competition, where he was awarded third prize at the Siófok event presenting traditional small crafts. His work attracted the attention of both the profession and an audience interested in folk art. In 1984, he won first prize at the “Régi mesterek, mai alkotók” competition announced by the Kölcsey Művelődési Központ in Debrecen. As a result of this recognition, he received invitations first to the folk art creative camp in Hajdúnánás, and later to the one in Tokaj. It was in these creative camps that he first encountered craftspeople and researchers who, like himself, regarded the study of Hungarian folk art, the collection of traditions, and their systematic processing as matters of fundamental importance.
During the creative sessions in Hajdúnánás, he formed lifelong friendships with three outstanding blacksmiths – Antal Szekeres, József Buczkó, and József Molnár. It was also here that, guided by the painter and ethnographic researcher Sándor Makoldi and the ethnographer Hajnalka Cs. Tábori, he began to engage more seriously with the semiotic aspects present in object-making folk art, as well as with the manifestations of sacrality embodied in objects. At the same time, he became actively involved in the collection and archiving of traditional artefacts.
At the by-then widely renowned Tokaj artists’ colony and creative camp, particularly in the company of folk artists, applied artists, architects, ethnographers, and art historians associated with the Studio of Young Folk Artists and linked to the so-called Nomadic Generation, his resolve was further strengthened: namely, that he should continue his individual creative path within the fields of folk art and folk applied art.
Significant support came from his membership in the Szabolcs-Szatmár Megyei Népművészeti Egyesület (from 1990: Szabolcs-Szatmár-Bereg Megyei Népművészeti Egyesület), through which – with the mediation of Júlia Oláh Puskásné, PhD – he was able to participate in an increasing number of exhibitions and competitions. In 1985, he entered the National Folk Art Exhibition with gate fittings and decorated hand tools based on his own field collections; of the 31 submitted objects, 27 were classified as “A” category by the folk applied art jury. The ethnographers serving on these juries – in particular Pál Bánszky, Endre Füzes, László Péterffy, András Galánfi, and Jolán Borbély – likewise supported the young folk applied artist, from 1986 onwards, with professional advice and opportunities to present his works. Before long, he himself became a member of these juries, serving as an expert master craftsman.
Alongside forged-iron objects, from 1987 onwards he also engaged in bell and chime casting. As a person of faith, the sacred character and symbolic role of bells rendered their making all the more significant for him.
One of the most important characteristics – and merits – of László Vajda’s collecting work and creative activity, dating primarily to the 1980s, lies in his remarkably sensitive ability to distinguish between the historical layers and stylistic features present in Hungarian blacksmithing up to the second half of the nineteenth century. At the same time, almost instinctively – thanks to the rural environment that had “raised” him and to the guidance of a good master – he preserved the systems of proportion inherent in these features and objects. Already as a recognised master, he in effect relearned the craft: armed with newly acquired knowledge, he was able to reinterpret iron objects, their ornaments, and their forms anew.
In the work of blacksmiths serving the common people (village blacksmiths), stylistic elements of courtly and urban metalworkers can, of course, occasionally be discerned – particularly Baroque features – along with the technical solutions and decorative procedures of the guilds. Fundamentally, however, ironworks rooted in peasant culture derive their value from their simplicity and practicality. The Vajda workshop did not seek to process the entire blacksmithing tradition of the Carpathian Basin, which had once flourished in numerous centres. Rather, within this workshop they aspired to produce items such as cart steps and whip holders, decorated hay cutters, and iron tripods at the level of knowledge possessed by the old masters – not to preserve this knowledge in a static manner, but to keep it alive through practice.
It is also important to note that alongside the collection of material artefacts, the gathering of older and more recent specialist literature and documentary sources was likewise among his aims, as László Vajda recognised that written and drawn material can sometimes provide information that is not always legible from a tangible object alone.
After taking leave of the school in Tiszavasvári, in 1991 László Vajda was given the opportunity to open an independent workshop in his native village. In the workshop, which had been under construction for several years, the basic principles were similar to those he had learned from his former master: first and foremost came the village, the tools of the people living there, their repair needs, and their commissions. Only after this could creative work and commissions from other regions follow. For Vajda László, the desire to preserve traditions and adherence to customary practices are not confined solely to work at the anvil and bellows, but also extend to the life of the village community itself.
The intention to pass on knowledge continued to live on within the independent workshop as well. He taught those who came forward of their own accord – both younger and older individuals eager to learn – within the framework of the classical master–apprentice relationship, rather than through a rigid, syllabus-based system. Over the years, fifteen apprentices passed through the workshop in Tiszaeszlár; of these, eight or nine remained in the profession as assistants and later as masters, either in Hungary or abroad, with their own workshops and livelihoods. “I put bread into their hands,” as the old masters used to say – and as László Vajda himself says today.
Once, each guild was able to provide a certain degree of security for its own community: it protected shared interests, offered clear points of reference in matters of knowledge, and also organised a form of communal life. László Vajda recognised the absence of these structures and, with the intention of rebuilding community bonds, took action in 1987 by organising the First International Blacksmiths’ Meeting in Nyíregyháza. Several further meetings followed, and the initiative soon gained recognition beyond national borders. This was reciprocated in turn: from 1998 onwards, László Vajda regularly attended blacksmiths’ meetings and festivals in Poland, the Czech Republic, and Austria. Initially he participated as a competitor; later, the distinctions he received led to his being invited to serve as a member of the juries.
The next step in organising a guild-like association came with the establishment of the Kovácsmíves Céh (Guild of Blacksmith Craftsmen) within the Szabolcs-Szatmár-Bereg Megyei Népművészeti Egyesület. As membership expanded, an independent association was formed in 1992 under the name Magyarországi Kovácsmíves Céh (Hungarian Guild of Blacksmith Craftsmen).
In 1995, the Népművészeti Egyesületek Szövetsége (Association of Folk Art Associations) decided to honour László Vajda with the Király Zsiga Prize, one of the most prestigious distinctions awarded to Hungarian folk artists. The justification was concise and precise: outstanding professional expertise, exemplary work carried out for communities, and a committed dedication to the preservation of tradition.
After the turn of the millennium, an important change took place in the workshop: one of László Vajda’s apprentices – his own son, also named László – began to assist in the work. Having looked around the wider world, the younger Vajda proposed the creation of new objects, primarily connected to the metalwork of Art Nouveau, and soon utilitarian and decorative pieces bearing the stylistic traits of modern blacksmithing also appeared in their repertoire.
The high-quality execution of forged-iron structural and decorative elements for buildings brought the workshop even greater recognition and visibility. Numerous commissions arrived from both Hungary and abroad for fences, window grilles, ornamental gates, chandeliers, cellar grilles, and decorative door handles. These areas of ironwork – intersecting with monument preservation, architecture, and interior design – demanded yet another phase of learning, since without an understanding of architectural characteristics and art-historical contexts it is impossible either to recreate or even to restore an ornamental gate conceived in the style of Henrik Fazola.
Despite the many works realised jointly, it is clearly evident that László Vajda’s true creative domain lies in folk object-making culture, which he knows from its very foundations to its most finely crafted expressions. By contrast, the younger László Vajda feels most at home in the creation of more ornate objects approaching the tastes of former bourgeois and aristocratic milieus, as well as in the field of modern metalwork. Their mutual influence is nonetheless unmistakable, as both remain open to new knowledge and approaches.
The Vajda workshop has become a family enterprise in the fullest sense of the word, as Vajda László’s wife also takes part in organisation and management. At the same time, their independence in creative work has not been lost – at most, it occasionally alternates as to who assumes the role of master and who that of apprentice.
From the early 2000s onwards, recognitions followed in quick succession: in 2004 he was awarded the title Master of Folk Art; from 2008 he served as president of the county folk art association; in 2013 he received the title Knight of Hungarian Culture; and later in 2013 he was elected a corresponding member of the Magyar Művészeti Akadémia (Hungarian Academy of Arts).
László Vajda is a patriarchal master among blacksmiths. His talent and perseverance have made him an outstanding professional, while his curiosity has shaped him into a reflective thinker. He undertook the collection of folk art relics at a time when such efforts were met either with indifference or outright hostility, and he spoke out about the fact that while masters may pass away, the craft itself never does.
He is not a critic of technology, of the world, or of changing ways of life. Rather, through his objects, through the respect he accords to work, and through his faith in human communities, he draws attention to what he has learned from Hungarian folk art: that proportions are of paramount importance.
[2016]