Carl László: More than a collector
Can the vast art collection find a home in Hungary?

By Tamás Róbert Galambos for ontheglobe.com from Budapest

In the world of international arts and antiquities, Basel-based Carl László is simply referred to as "The Magician." The renowned art collector, who celebrates his 80th birthday in July, shines in conversation and is known for his flamboyant appearances at the social events of the Western European aristocracy, in the media, as well as frequenting both notable and obscure artistic circles.

With his characteristic appearance, László quickly gravitates toward the centre of attention wherever he goes. During his last visit to Hungary, our meeting took place at his regular café in Buda where he showed up accompanied by his personal assistant, wearing a floor-length mink coat, the obligatory Havana cigar hanging from his mouth and periodically emitting spouts of smoke and a Tibetan amulet around his neck containing the ashes of a Buddhist guru. Finally, on his hands was an entire collection of shinning antique jewels.

"I am a collector and creator, twenty-four hours of every day, and have been living this life for the past sixty years," he declares.

László explained how he gathered his first folk art collection when he was fourteen, as part of a philosophical inspiration, he says. He would collect folk art from Hungarian villages, travelling on foot from one to another in what for him represented an exotic, oriental landscape. It was the discovery of an ancient world, and what he saw as the Asian roots of the Hungarians.

"Ever since I have followed my own route," he says, "never straying from collecting exactly those things that personally interested me."

The collection of his youth was dispersed during the Second World War, and László himself also almost lost his life after he and his entire family were deported by the Nazi's to Auschwitz. Later, the Communists in Hungary forced him to leave his native country, this time for being the descendant of an upper middle class family.

Edgar Ende, Untitled, c. 1947

Notwithstanding, he vows to having lived "remarkably happily" in his Basel palace, overcrowded as it may be with his favorite treasures. Following a mission, he has not allowed his personal "collecting mania" to be overly influenced by the trends of the market. Nor does he listen to the 'theoretic guidelines' of what he terms the "full-time snobs" of the art world.

It has been his personal intuition and his circle of friends that have led László to become an important figure in the European art world, and as an art dealer, personality, and public figure he has accumulated a significant fortune.

He has some unfinished business, meanwhile. He wants to fulfill a longstanding pledge to return his now enormous collection of more than 15,000 artworks to Hungary. The pledge was made, he says, to return the collection after "the last Soviet soldier left the country."

Following negotiations, and despite the promises of ministers, government officials and curators in Hungary to find a home or institution to house the collection, no concrete agreement has been committed to paper thus far. What is at stake? The collection can be divided into seven sub-groups. While at first sight the collection may seem eclectic, it represents an independent, organic whole, which reflects László's literary and cultural organization activities. He sees it as being part of a kind of 'philosophical unity'.

The first grouping consists of works of European fine arts from the 16th century, through to the impressionists, and leading to an array of contemporary art.

"If we concentrate on mostly European paintings and sculptures, the collection ranges chronologically from the Mannerist's, through the pre-Raphaelite's and except for some important 19th century paintings, it becomes completed by some 20th century European and American works," wrote art historian Krisztina Passuth.

Among the many artists collected are Andre Bauchant, William Blake, Felix Coubine, Salvador Dali, Johann Heinrich Füssli, Natalja Goncsarova, Friedensreich Hundertwasser, Gustav Klimt, Frantisek Kupka, Yves Laloy, Roy Lichtenstein, René Maggritte, Constantin Meunier, Alphonse Mucha, Francis Picabia, Franz von Stuck, Yves Tanguy, Tristan Tzara and Andy Warhol.

He didn't separate the Hungarian works in his collection into an independent group, László explains, because, "the most important Hungarian works fit precisely into the context of any European collection."

Hungarian artists getting special notice in the collection include János Mattis-Teutsch, Etienne Beöthy, Lajos Kassák, Victor Vasarely, László Moholy-Nagy, Sándor Bortnyik, Béla Kádár and Húgó Scheiber. It also consists of works of art from Miklós Barabás, Gyula Batthány, Róbert Berény, Sándor Bihari, Dezsô Bokros-Birmann, István Csók, József Egry, Noémi and Károly Ferenczy, Frigyes Frank, Jolán Gross-Bettelheim, Gyula Hincz, Béla Iványi Grünwald, Károly Kernstock, Zsigmond Kisfalusi Strobl, János Kmetty, Béla Kontuly, László Fülöp, Ödön Márffy, Ferenc Medgyessy, Pál Molnár C, Mihály Munkácsy, József Nemes Lampért, István Pekáry, Vilmos Perlott Csaba, József Rippl-Rónai, István Széchényi and Lajos Tihanyi.

"The László collection is more than just a collection," says Austrian art dealer Ernst Wastl, owner of the Budapest-based Ernst Gallery. "It's a real work of art which is unique even if we only consider the history of its inception. It holds together remarkably, despite the fact that László's inspiration covers such a very wide spectrum and even if some of the objects only have value within the entirety of the collection."

And the scope of the collection is as wide as it is thorough. He spent years collecting several thousand East Asian antique Buddha sculptures and devotional objects, a group split further into a minimum of three sub-groups. The first containing castings and metal statuettes' from the flourishing period of Tibetan art in the 15th-16th centuries. The second grouping is 18th-19th century Buddhist sculptural works from Burma. These are lacquered wooden sculptures that uncover the late period of an art history hardly represented in any European art collections. There are also sculpture collections from Bali, India, Thailand and Indonesia. The latter are usually large sculptures made of sandstone or bronze, dating back to the 13th -15th centuries.

The pop art collection was conceived through the collectors friendships with the artists of the beat generation themselves, unique contacts for a European at that time. These connections led him to become familiar with the American intellectuals of the 1960s and 1970s. Such colorful characters included poet Allen Ginsberg, author William Borroughs, Jack Kerouak, and artists Andy Warhol, Roy Lichtenstein or Christo- who embraced László, despite his critical view of left-leaning intellectual movements.

Ludwig von Hofmann, The judgement of Paris, 1904

Many of these personalities became contributors to the journal published by László, first called Panderma and later Radar. From the 1960's on, László was part and parcel of the events of the American social and cultural movement: at times as an observer, a professional psychoanalyst or friend.

He would go on to assemble mementos from rock concerts, student upheavals, orgies, happenings and symbols of the then reviled "material class". Along with art, he rounded up an assortment of guitars, pinball machines, wurlitzers and a terribly expensive collection of toy robots that have now been meticulously registered as part of his collection.

There are photographs by noted American photographer Robert Mapplethorpe, images belonging to the circles that worked on Panderma, and a Man Ray self-portrait, as well as rare pieces like a portrait of the Russian poet Jevgenij Jevtusenko, photographed by Allen Ginsberg and signed by Jevtusenko and three American poets. Work by Jean Cocteau, signed for a "dear friend," is featured in the library and documentation archive numbering some 30,000 individual documents.

A design collection contains prototypes and curios from the history of fashion, and even drawings by occultist Alister Crowley and Kurt Seligmann.

Harder to categorize are the unique "visitors' paintings." These are canvases on which guests of his Basel home were asked to draw or paint. This is how - among others - Lajos Kassák, Friedensreich Hundertwasser, Victor Vasarely, Etienne Beöthy and György Ligeti managed to co-create art at the impresario's instigation.

Curios, furniture, carpets, Art Deco ornamental pieces that were collected by László when these were still looked down upon as the "cheap category" of art: all part of a collection that has grown into a mammoth whole.

Wastl says that while László's greatest merit is being the first post-war Hungarian collector to garner such an important reputation the international antiquities market.

"For this he took advantage of his personal contacts and gradually developed the reputation of his collection, and his own intuition to buy the entire oeuvre of artists who otherwise would have been condemned to obscurity by the Communist regime," says Wastl, "It is inconceivably unintelligent that the fate of the collection he gave as a present to his home country, is still unclear."

Raphael Delorme, "Nude with machines"

The last time that an important part of the collection was shown in Hungary was in 1996, when 1,300 pieces from the collection were exhibited at the Budapest's Műcsarnok. The exhibition attracted several thousand visitors, and at that time László and the Budapest city council agreed on promoting the establishment of a permanent "László Károly Collection."

They also agreed that the entire collection of 15,000 works should be placed as soon as possible in a suitable location. László's wants to keep the collection organic and intact, while avoiding a sterile, thematic museum-type exhibition space.

The location of potential museum space, however, has yet to be found, with some authorities or ministries rejecting László's plan as "grandiose and crazy," citing lack of funds and space. László, meanwhile, labels the government financing of other contemporary art centers or foundations as "much less significant".

László believes that in Hungary "there are still these few indoctrinated officials who decide what to hang on modern art museums' walls…the same characters who were in place in the 1980s."

"These people and their 'courtly painters' also once fought against post-modern and other ephemeral trends," he says, "Their mentality has remained the same for generations, and their definition of art is limited to their own definitions of it. I would say that their taste simply reflects those who copy of the newest trends from abroad."

"In this country, meanwhile, there are still some unknown or lesser-known autonomous artists, real Hungarian artists. I personally have bought several of these artists' entire life works, and I don't regret it."

* Copyright Tamas Robert Galambos, DT - Diplomacy and Trade Magazine and ontheglobe.com © July/August 2003. All rights reserved.