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From Plein Air to Avant-Garde

The Zimmerli celebrates its gift of the largest collection of Hungarian art in the U.S.

By Susan Van Dongen
Outside of central Europe, New Brunswick may be the most Hungarian place on the plan et. From November 1956 to June 1957, Camp Kilmer, just a couple of miles away, served as an initial place for the housing of refugees from the Hungarian Revolution. Many remained in the area, establishing a huge Hungarian presence in New Brunswick.
   This is just one of the reasons the late Nicolas M. Salgo, Hungarian-American financier, former ambassador to Hungary and art collector, felt his vast array of Hungarian art, maps and books should have a permanent home in New Brunswick.
   Last year, Rutgers, the State University of New Jersey, announced that the Salgo Trust would donate more than 350 works of Hungarian art, representing some 100 artists, to the Jane Voorhees Zimmerli Art Museum. The works vary in style, from 19th-century academic painting, plein-air painting, Art Nouveau and Secessionist works, 20th-century avant-garde works, photography and works in the regionalist style of the period between World War I and World War II.
   To celebrate this gift, the Zimmerli Museum presents The Magyar Imagination: Selections from the Salgo Trust Donation of Hungarian Art in the Voorhees Special Exhibition Gallery through March 18. The show marks the first time an overview of this collection has been presented to the public.
   According to curator Oliver A. I. Botar, associate professor of art history at the University of Manitoba, it is the largest and most important collection of 19th- and 20th-century Hungarian art outside of central Europe. He agrees that the Salgo Collection is in New Brunswick because there’s a Hungarian presence in the city, but there are other reasons as well.
   ”Rutgers has one of only two full-fledged programs in Hungarian studies of any university in the United States,” Mr. Botar says. “New Brunswick also has the American Hungarian Foundation. (Rutgers) Professor Paul Hannebrink is interested in collaborating with them and teaching using their materials and archives. So there’s a real potential for synergy.”
   The American Hungarian Foundation’s 50,000-volume library is an affiliate of, and accessible through, the Rutgers University Library System. Mr. Botar says the Salgo donation is coming with its own collection of books and maps, which will complement that which exists at the American Hungarian Foundation.
   Mr. Botar notes that there is yet another motive for placing the Salgo materials at the Zimmerli, which also boasts the Norton Dodge Collection of Soviet Non-Conformist Art as well as a substantial accumulation of French art.
   ”When you situate Hungarian art between Russian and French art, it works well between the two poles — it’s a very good context,” Mr. Botar says. “The Hungarian sensibility falls somewhere between the tragic and highly politicized vision of Russian culture and the more pastoral, lighter vision of the French.
   ”Really, there are many reasons for locating the collection here — for one thing, it’s only an hour away from New York City,” he adds. “But for Salgo, it was also very important that the collection be in a university gallery. For him, education was always significant so it was crucial for us to set it up like this.”
   Located in Port Washington, N.Y., the Salgo Trust for Education is an art history research center founded by the late Mr. Salgo to maintain his extensive art collection. The materials received from the Salgo Trust will form the basis for a comprehensive program of the collection, research and teaching of Hungarian visual culture at Rutgers University, through the planned establishment of a Center for Hungarian Art.
   The Salgo Trust also will provide substantial support for the collection, including funding for the construction of a storage facility at Rutgers and the digitization of the collection. An endowment will be set up to support a part-time curator and other needs. Rutgers, in turn, will create a graduate fellowship for modern Hungarian art. The execution of the gift and other aspects of the donation will be completed within the next 10 years.
   Among the notable pieces in the collection are five works by Mihály Munkácsy, the most important Hungarian artist of the 19th century; Mother and Two Children, an 1869 painting by Pál Szinyei-Merse representing one of the earliest examples of central European Impressionism; a portrait by József Rippl-Rónai, who worked in France as a member of the post-Impressionist group known as the Nabis; and abstract paintings by the significant modernist Janos Mattis-Teutsch.
   Architektur, a seminal painting by László Moholy-Nagy from 1921-1922, represents one of his first expressions of complete geometric abstraction. Photography lovers will be interested to know that there are also photographs by Andre Kertezs from his Hungarian period, some of which have never been seen before.
   In addition, “…Salgo loved landscapes and images of women, so these are some of the strengths of the collection,” Mr. Botar says.
   Lesser known than the Salgo Trust’s art collection, but equally intriguing are the historical maps of Hungary and Central/Southeastern Europe, some of which extend back to the 16th century. There is also a growing collection of rare books and publications, particularly Art Nouveau books and publications of the early 20th century avant-garde.
   ”There is serialist work from the ‘30s and ‘40s, Socialist work from the ‘60s — the range reflects the richness of the collection, and it maps out Hungarian visual culture,” Mr. Botar says, noting the distinct quality and mental vision of the world constructed by Hungarians. “It is both closely related to and different from the world view of other European nations. The Magyar imagination stems from a geographical region and millennial state formation historically bounded by the Carpathian Mountains, as well as the Magyars’ highly distinctive language.”
   Since the announcement about the Salgo donation was made, Mr. Botar says a second significant collection of Hungarian art is said to be coming to the Zimmerli Museum.
   ”Miklós Muller (Professor Emeritus at the Rockefeller University in New York) and his wife Jan Keithly are in the process of donating their entire collection, which is comprised of avant-garde art of the early 20th century,” Mr. Botar says. “I have also heard there are negotiations with a third major collector. It’s developing into a major thing here at the Zimmerli. To my knowledge there are no other centers for the studies of Hungarian art outside of Hungary and no other museum outside of central Europe that collects Hungarian art generally.
   ”Museums only collect the big names, so this is the first institution actively collecting a broad range of Hungarian art,” he adds. “We’re hoping for more people to take note. It’s unprecedented and there’s a real need for this.”
The Magyar Imagination: Selections from the Salgo Trust Donation of Hungarian Art is on view at the Jane Voorhees Zimmerli Art Museum, 71 Hamilton St., on the College Avenue campus of Rutgers University, New Brunswick, through March 18. Gallery hours: Tues.-Fri. 10 a.m.-4:30 p.m., Sat.-Sun. noon-5 p.m. Admission: $3; free for museum members, Rutgers students, faculty and staff with ID, and under 18. Admission is free on the first Sunday of the month. The museum will present a lecture by Eva Forgacs, curator, art historian and adjunct professor at Art Center College of Design, Pasadena, titled ‘The Beginnings of Modernism in Hungarian Painting,’ Feb. 3, 2 p.m. (732) 932-7237 ext. 610; www.zimmerlimuseum.rutgers.edu