The Hungary Archives #5

Last post in this series of old Hungarian photographs. It is interesting to see how common berets were worn in this country too, by both women and men. Hungary too had it own beret factory, Nor-Coc, which closed in the 1960s. 

Skyline of the Vienna Hill, 1965

Stone worker, 1966

Bikini, 1968

Market 1971

Mechanics working on a Mercedes Benz truck, 1966

Worker, 1975

The Hungary Archives #4

Office workers, 1955

Picturebook reading, 1958

Warszawa M 20, 1960

Lady chauffeur Ford Model A Roadster, 1929

AJS British Motorbike, 1930

At the Déri Múzeum, 1937

The Hungary Archives #3

In the Greenhouse, 1938

Sailing, 1955

Tractorist at Oradea Square, opposite the Üllői 121st, 1956

Újpest bay, ship yard, 1954

Freedom Square, October 6th, 1962

Skoda at Pest's lower embankment Fővám (Dimitrov) square with the background of the Liberty bridge abutment, 1954

The Hungary Archives #2

The Somló-hegy winery, 1959

Beret wearer, in the background the Benedictine Abbey, 1960

 Badacsony and Fonyód. A motorized passenger boat, 1959

Play ground in Budapest, 1957

The filming of The Game of Love. 1957

AJS (AJ Stevens & Co. Ltd) British-made motorcycle with sidecar, 1932 

The Hungary Archives #1

I discovered an archive of Hungarian  photography, which proved a real treasure trove for beret related material. Below the first of these great pictures:

FSO truck driver stopped by volunteer police, 1964

Elizabeth Bridge construction in Budapest, 1963

Elizabeth Bridge on the Pest side of Budapest, looking towards the bridge before the inauguration, 1964

Kossuth Lajos street corner, 1962

State Farm, Horticultural College students, 1958

Dance, 1961

Victor Moscoso

Born in Spain, Victor Moscoso was the first of the rock poster artists of the 60’s era with formal academic training and experience. After studying art at Cooper Union in New York City and at Yale University, he moved to San Francisco in 1959. There, he attended the San Francisco Art Institute, where he eventually became an instructor.

Moscoso's use of vibrating colors was influenced by painter Josef Albers, one of his teachers at Yale. He was the first of the rock poster artists to use photographic collage in many of his posters.

Professional lightning struck in the form of the psychedelic rock and roll poster for the San Francisco "Hippy" dance halls and clubs. Victor Moscoso's posters for the Family Dog dance-concerts at the Avalon Ballroom and his Neon Rose posters for the Matrix were to bring his work international attention in the "Summer of Love", 1967.

Within a year, lightning would strike again in the form of the Underground Comix. As one of the Zap Comix Artists, Moscoso's work, once again received international attention. Moscoso's comix and poster work has continued up to the present and includes album covers for musicians such as Jerry Garcia, Bob Weir, Herbie Hancock, and David Grisman. He also created art for use on t-shirts, billboards and animated commercials for radio stations.

Walter Kohn

Walter Kohn (1923 –2016), the Austrian-born American, Nobel prize winning theoretical physicist and theoretical chemist died last week on 19 April.

Kohn arrived in England as part of the famous Kindertransport rescue operation, immediately after the annexation of Austria by Hitler. His parents, Gittel and Salomon Kohn, were killed at Auschwitz in 1944. Because Kohn  was a German national, he was sent to Canada by the English in July 1940. He succeeded in entering the University of Toronto, but as a German national, the future Nobel Laureate in Chemistry was not allowed to enter the chemistry building, and so he opted for physics and mathematics.

Beyond physics, he was a humanist, an artist, and a philosopher who shared time with such revered figures as the Pope and the Dalai Lama. In 2005, he and fellow Nobel Laureate and UC Santa Barbara Professor of Physics and of Materials Alan Heeger produced a documentary on solar power titled The Power of the Sun, narrated by actor and comedian John Cleese. It was distributed in several languages, including Chinese, Japanese, Arabic, several European languages, and Tagalog in the Philippines, with screenings worldwide. This film inspires with the dream of empowering even the most isolated people of the developing world with electricity.

Beyond his research, Walter was deeply engaged in matters spiritual and societal. Many have been inspired by his incredible life story and his work to promote tolerance and world peace.

Thank you, Michel

Janus with Beret - Ivan Chermayeff

Ivan Chermayeff is credited with producing the now-iconic American logos for companies such as NBC, PBS, Mobile Oil, PanAm, the Smithsonian Institution and The Museum of Modern Art.

Ivan Chermayeff studied at Harvard University, the Institute of Design in Chicago, and graduated from Yale University, School of Art and Architecture.

His most interesting work, in my personal opinion, is Janus with Beret (pictured above). 

Décalcomanie

Once you saw these in every French hatters shop window: décalcomanies for berets.

Decalcomania, from the French décalcomanie, is a decorative technique by which engravings and prints may be transferred to pottery or other materials. Today the shortened version is "Decal".

The time of all men wearing berets is long behind us, and so is the diminishment of these little arty window pieces.

And like everything that's become obsolete, rare and vintage, they actually fetch high prices on auction web sites and at antique markets. 

László Sólyom

László Sólyom (1942) is a Hungarian political figure, lawyer, and librarian who was President of Hungary from 2005 until 2010.

Previously he was president of the Constitutional Court of Hungary from 1990 to 1998. During this time, the Constitutional Court laid the groundwork for a strengthening democracy in Hungary. 

In his role, he significantly contributed to the removal of capital punishment, the protection of information rights, the freedom of opinion and of conscience, as well as the constitutional protection of domestic partnerships of homosexuals, which measures brought wide international acclaim for the Constitutional Court of Hungary.

As president-elect he promised not to visit the U.S. as long as it requires him to be fingerprinted at the border. László Sólyom is an avid beret wearer.

Fernando González Ochoa "Otraparte"

Fernando González Ochoa (1895 –1964), was a Colombian writer and existentialist philosopher known as "el filósofo de Otraparte" (The Philosopher from somewhere else).

He wrote about sociology, history, art, moral, economy, epistemology and theology in a magisterial and creative way, using different genres of literature. González is considered one of the most original writers of Colombia during the 20th century.

His ideas were controversial and had a great influence in the Colombian society at his time and today. The González work was the inspiration of Nadaism, a literary movement founded by one of his disciples, Gonzalo Arango.

The Otraparte Villa, his house in Envigado, is today a museum and the headquarters of the cultural foundation to preserve and promote his legacy. The place was declared a National Patrimony of Colombia in 2006.