The Golden Age of Hungarian Film Posters
October 27 – November 27 The internationally significant vintage film poster collection of Ernst Gallery entitled The Golden Age of Hungarian Film Posters contains almost 200 unique compositions of Hungarian poster art between 1912 and 1945. The early lithographs of this collection combine excellent, clear design and striking colors with limited text, and demonstrate unique visual force and aesthetic quality found nowhere else. These posters are one-of-a-kind, as only several pieces were made for the few movie theaters in Budapest. This is the first
time the Ernst Gallery presents a selection of 24 of these posters in the U.S. We hope that this exhibit as well as publishing the catalogue shed light on the history of this genre that is so closely connected to the historic and social events in Hungary during the first two decades of the 20th century. The catalogue won the “Best Hungarian Art Book 2004”, and can be found in many museums around the world.
The Golden Age of Hungarian Film Posters is free and open to the public. The posters are on display in the Walter Reade Theater’s Frieda and Roy Furman Gallery at Lincoln Center. Gallery hours are 2-8 pm daily.
Imagine Budapest, the capital city of Hungary at the turn of the 20th century. Huge architectural projects are being built such as the world’s second biggest synagogue or the Parliament. New avenues are built not to mention the start of the first underground in Europe. Known as the Paris of Central Europe, it is a vibrant cultural city open to the novelties of the Art Nouveau era. The motion-picture, invention of the French Lumière brothers, soon becomes the number one entertainment for a country with only 17 million inhabitants. Now imagine the United States at the turn of the 20th century. Hundreds of thousands of people find short escapes from their everyday lives in front of the silver screen. In a country of 250 million inhabitants, the scale of the film industry, the number of films, cinemas, posters as well as funds is incomparable to the Hungarian circumstances of the time. Thousands of the same posters were printed to advertise each new film from the East to the West Coast. The competition between the film studios is cut throat but as the audiences increase so more film can be produced.
The films of these days are silent, black & white and only ten to thirty minutes long. Actors and actresses are often amateurs because theater artists are still reluctant to play roles in the “new-born media.” In these circumstances it is the graphic designer’s job to attract and bring the crowds into the movie theatres by promising never experienced excitements through his lithographic art works. Posters are the “spokesmen” of the films and often are made just for a one day show (see poster The Road of Death playing on September 24 in Corso cinema). Because of the quickly changing cinema program, graphic artists are usually engaged last minute and work overnight to design state-of-the-art posters requiring an astonishing spontaneity and creativity from them. These early stone prints combine a narrative often symbolic depiction with an excellent, clear design, striking colors and limited text, demonstrating unique visual power and esthetic quality hardly found anywhere else. Hungarian film posters are printed in probably 5-10 copies and are usually displayed around the cinemas.
Foreign film titles are translated into Hungarian, a language uniquely spoken in Hungary, limiting the use and the number of copies to a very small geographical market. Due to the shortage on material the paper of the posters were constantly recycled therefore the pieces are often luckily “saved” by the era’s ‘collectors in spite of themselves’. The disadvantages of historical and geographical situation of Hungary turned out to be a great advantage on the design side resulting in such a diversity and imagination in poster art that remains unparalleled and timeless. These posters are not relics but more the witnesses of the golden age of Hungarian graphic art 1912-1945. The collection has been displayed in Hungary and Austria several times, but this is the first time Ernst Gallery presents it in the United States, to a nation that has been the leader of the motion picture for over a hundred years. The posters are fully presented in a bilingual, English- Hungarian album that was awarded “Best Hungarian Art Book 2004,” and can be found in renowned museum libraries around the world.
We hope that exhibiting the collection as well as publishing the catalogue will shed light on the history of this genre of the applied arts which is so closely connected to the historic and social events in Hungary during the first two decades of the 20th century. We wish you a great trip back in time. “The film poster is a necessary adjunct of the film. A good film is unimaginable without a good poster, in fact, a good poster saves a bad film ...” Lipot Satori, graphic designer Budapest 1920
For further information, please visit The Ernst Gallery
web site.
The Film Society of Lincoln Center presents curated exhibits in the Frieda and Roy Furman Gallery at the Walter Reade Theater that either compliment the programming or are film related art shows. Inaugurated in 1991, the space was designed by prestigious architectural firm Davis Brody and named in honor of the Furmans, longtime supporters of the Film Society.
