Ernő Kállai

Ernő Kállai ( Hungarian Kállai Ernő , German  also Ernst Kállai ) (born November 9, 1890 in Szakálháza ; † November 28, 1954 in Budapest ) was a Hungarian teacher , art historian , writer , publicist , caricaturist and art critic . At the end of the 1920s he worked at the Bauhaus Dessau under Hannes Meyer as editor of the Bauhaus magazine.

Life and works

Ernő Kállai, who grew up bilingually - German and Hungarian - finished high school in Déva in 1910 . In 1910 he began to study Hungarian and German language, literature and history at the state college for community teachers in Pest . In 1913 visited Germany , England , Scandinavia and America for study purposes . Until its convocation for military service in World War I in 1915, he worked as a teacher . At this time he met the publicist Lajos Kassák . In the magazine MA , which he edited , Kállai published under a pseudonym (Péter Mátyás) essays on constructivism in art. After the First World War, he initially continued to teach in Nagymarton . In 1920 Kállai went to Germany to study. In the early 1920s he also worked temporarily at the British Museum and the National Gallery in London .

At the Bauhaus , among other things, he participated in the constructivism debate as editor of the yearbook for young art - together with László Moholy-Nagy and El Lissitzky . In particular, he criticized the fact that the ideal and goal of the Bauhaus, essentially to create objects of daily use, was not fulfilled and demanded - contrary to numerous influential Bauhaus artists - the strict separation of pure and applied art. In addition, he was active as a journalist in Germany, wrote exhibition reviews and published in numerous art and culture magazines, among others. a. in the Ararat , the world stage and in the Cicerone . In 1925 he wrote the work Modern Painting in Hungary in German and Hungarian . Under Hannes Meyer , he was appointed editor of the Bauhaus magazine at the Bauhaus Dessau in 1928 . At the same time he worked for the Hungarian magazine Tér és Forma published by Lajos Kassák .

Disappointed by developments at the Bauhaus in the second half of the 1920s, he left Dessau in 1929 and went to Berlin . Here he worked, among other things, as an editor for the magazine German Art and Decoration . At the Berlin Weltbühne he was one of the left, socialist-oriented authors of the magazine, in which he wrote articles and essays on cultural policy in the early 1930s. In Berlin he was secretary of the Hungarian Society.

Memorial plaque for Erno Kállai at 76 Kiscelli Street in Budapest

In 1930 he organized and curated the exhibition Vision und Formgesetz at the Berlin gallery Ferdinand Möller , which included works by Paul Klee , Oskar Nerlinger , Friedrich Vordemberge-Gildewart , Oskar Schlemmer , Ewald Mataré , Georg Muche , Heinrich Hoerle , Lyonel Feininger and Wassily Kandinsky showed.

After the " seizure of power " by the National Socialists , Kállai was no longer able to work as a journalist in Germany and returned to Hungary in 1935. Here he organized individual and group exhibitions of modern Hungarian artists and emigrants , among others in the Ernst Museum and in the Tamás Gallery . a. with works by Béla Czóbel , József Egry , Jenő Barcsay , Róbert Berény , Gyula Pap and István Farkas .

From 1937 until the end of the Second World War he worked as an editor and art critic for the German-speaking Pester Lloyd , the political magazine Az Ország Útja and the magazine Jelenkor published by Jenő Kattona . After the end of the war he taught aesthetics and art history at the Hungarian Art Academy in Budapest . In the artistic council of the Hungarian government he was appointed head of the section for fine arts. In addition, he continued his journalistic work, organized exhibitions and founded the art gallery to the four cardinal points . In 1948, Ernő Kállai joined the European School artist group .

Dissatisfied and disappointed by the political developments in Hungary at the end of the 1940s, Kállai retired from all public and political offices in 1948. In the last years of his life he translated works of Hungarian literature into German. He was no longer able to realize the new edition of the work Modern Painting in Hungary planned by him .

Honor

In 1941 he was awarded the Baumgarten Prize . The Kállai Ernő Society was founded in Budapest in 1989 in memory of the art critic and publicist Ernő Kállai, who published more than 900 works and essays in his life. In 2004, at his former home in Kiscelli utca 76 in III. A memorial plaque has been placed in the Budapest district .

Works (selection)

• Kassák Lajos , Ma, November 15, 1921
• Constructivism , Ma , May 1, 1923
• A mai művészet képproblémái , Ars Una, November 1923
• The Russian Exhibition in Berlin , Akasztott Ember, Volume 2 , 1923
• More recent painting in Hungary , Leipzig 1925, Klinkhardt & Biermann
• Painting and Film , Socialist Monthly Issues 32, No. 3
• Magyar művészet külföldön (Hungarian Art Abroad), Magyar Írás, 1927
• The Bauhaus is alive , Bauhaus, 1928 / 2-3.
• the bauhaus Dessau: exhibition April 21-20 may 1929 industrial museum basel , Dessau 1929, Franke, 16 pp.
• Nurse Albers with the pre-course baby , caricature / collage, 1930 (lost)
• The Bauhaus Buddha Paul Klee , caricature / collage, 1930 (lost)
• Co-op, the Bauhaus traffic protection angel , caricature for Hannes Meyer / collage, 1930 (lost)
• Ten Years of the Bauhaus , Weltbühne, Berlin 1930, Volume 24
• Rhythm in Pictures , Die Weltbühne, 1930, Volume 41.
• On the work of Fritz Winter , Die neue Stadt, 1932
• Painting and film , Fórum, 1933
• The Child in Art , Pester Lloyd, February 24, 1940
• Christ Visions of Modern Art , Pester Lloyd, April 13, 1941
• Cezanne és a XX. sz. Konstruktív művészete , Budapest, 1942
• The Szinyei Prize Winners , Pester Lloyd, February 2, 1943
• Finnish architecture , Pester Lloyd, May 18, 1943
• Polish artist , Pester Lloyd, January 10, 1944
• Művészet a romok között , Jövendő, February 14, 1946 (Art in the Ruins)
• A természet rejtett arca , Budapest, 1947

Individual evidence

1. ↑ ^{a b c} Ernst (Ernö) Kállai . In: Hajo Düchting (Ed.): Seemann's Bauhaus-Lexikon . Leipzig 2009, EA Seemann, ISBN 978-3-86502-203-5 , p. 175.
2. ↑ ^{a b c d e f} Ernő Kállai. In: Artportal. Retrieved March 31, 2017 (Hungarian). 
3. ↑ Ernst Kállai: Vision and Form Law, sheets of the Ferdinand Möller gallery, issue 8, September 1930, Berlin, 20 pp.

literature

• Hubertus Gaßner: Interactions. Hungarian avant-garde in the Weimar Republic , Marburg 1986.
• HM Wingler: The Bauhaus, 1919–1933. Weimar Dessau Berlin and the successor in Chicago since 1937 , Bramsche 1962, p. 458.
• Ernst (Ernő) Kállai . In: Hajo Düchting (Ed.): Seemann's Bauhaus-Lexikon . Leipzig 2009, EA Seemann, ISBN 978-3-86502-203-5 , p. 175.
• Péter László: Új magyar irodalmi lexicon  II. (H – Ö). Főszerk. Budapest 1994, Akadémiai. 1994, ISBN 963-05-6806-3 , p. 944 (in Hungarian)

Web links

• bauhaus100.de Ernst Kállai