Lajos Kozma (1884-1948)

Lajos Kozma is among the most famous of Hungarian designers and architects. His work was also widely covered and well received in Germany and Austria. Although his designs of the early 1930s are clearly inspired by Bauhaus and functionalism, the furniture presented here offers a very different character. It is an example of Kozma's intensive preoccupation with Hungarian folk art and the Baroque of the Habsburg monarchy. Still in the spirit of reform art around 1900, Kozma is vitalizing folkloristic elements in order to re-interpret them in his furniture of the 1920s. This distinguished examination of Baroque and the exploration of its stylistic qualities can also be found by other important artists of the former Austro-Hungarian empire, such as Josef Hoffmann and Dagobert Peche.