Budapest Poster Gallery

2. Auktion | Plakate und Plakatentwürfen

126 x 95 cm. Fine, restored.

Poster with Hebrew script ("Supreme Rubber Hoses for Warm Countries"). Other marks: "Made in Hungary", and Palestine ink stamp from May 1934.
In 1882, the Hungarian Ernő Schotta founded the first rubber-producing factory in the country. The firm was soon bought by Austrian investors. They founded a new company in Hungary, the "Hungarian Rubber Factory" - "Magyar Ruggyantaárugyár". The name's abbreviation was MRG. The trademark "Emergé" came from the uttered version of this abbreviation.
They produced rubber tires, sponge floors, and rubber mats.
Berény was an important avant-garde painter and designer in Hungary, since the 1910s. He was a member of the famous avant-garde painter group, namely the "Eight" (Nyolcak). He designed impressive propaganda posters during the Hungarian Soviet Republic in 1919. After the fall of the regime, he had to leave the country. He emigrated to Germany, and was living in Berlin for a while. As in 1925 the Hungarian government declared an amnesty for everyone who was involved in the Soviet system, so Berény could return home. Like his friend and colleague Sándor Bortnyik, he started his career in advertising. They were active painters, but it was hard for them to establish themselves as artists because they didn’t get opportunities to exhibit or sell works.
However, both of them soon got commissions as graphic designers. Berény applied the new forms and fonts of constructivism and Bauhaus on advertising posters. Berény and Bortnyik are considered as the leading characters of the modernist trends in Hungarian poster art.
Berény’s modernist posters are outstanding works of the age, which are known world-wide , such as his 1929 poster for the Modiano cigarette-paper company.
Berény often worked for the "Magyar Ruggyantaárugyár". He created a very famous poster for the firm's other trademark, "Cordatic". For one emblematic poster he invented a new figure: a rushing man with a driving hat, and accelerator feet. The figure is leaning forward in the middle, expressing speed and dynamism.
The "Hungarian Rubber Factory" also published a magazine for car drivers, and they appointed Berény as the art director of the publication. Berény designed many covers and illustrations himself, or he chose the most talented young designers for these tasks (such as Pál Molnár C., Tihamér Csemiczky, Victor Vasarely etc.).
The Emergé company produced not only rubber tires, but everything made of rubber. Their rubber shoe- and bathing cap catalogs were often designed by Tihamér Csemiczky.
Knowning Berény's close connection with MRG rubber company, it is not surprising that he designed a poster for rubber hoses. The unusual part is the Hebrew text, which proves that the piece was designed for export. We don't have information about the firm's export activity in Palestine. However, historical essays about the company mention that during the years of the depression the export became very important part in the business. Maybe that's why they targeted Palestine with this poster, emphasizing that the product is very useful in a "warm country". Berény presents a simple scene: an anonymous figure uses the product, the rubber hose. The scripts appear in diagonal, which was in fashion in the contemporary “modernist” graphic design. Probably the company asked him to represent all the types of rubber hose on the poster. The composition is a great modernist work, typical of Berény. We see a nearly abstract, face-less figure, besides realistic and decorative representations of the objects. The intensive colors and the dynamism of the composition makes this poster an outstanding piece.
(Anikó Katona)