(May Day 1919, Budapest)
I just found a book on Hungarian artist/designer Mihaly Biro. I don’t read Magyar so I can only supply scant biographical details: he was born in 1886, went into exile in the US during WWII, and returned to Hungary after the war, where he died in 1948. He worked as a commercial illustrator and designer and was also tied to socialist movements in Hungary and Germany. He made beautiful work, done in a modern European style before the hegemony of constructivism/bauhaus and socialist realism on the left.
Red Parliament: Vote Social-Democrat (1919)
This is an advertisement for the magazine Nomunkas, and the subtitle (I believe) says ‘an advocate for working women’. (1910s?)
The book I found has mostly poster work, both commercial and political. Graphic Witness has a series of Goya-like images he made against the right wing Horthy regime in Hungary.
Biro never went to the US. He spent WWII in occupied Paris, as a patient at the Rothchild Hospital. He suffered from tuberculosis and I guess that the Rothchild Hospital offered some protection. He returned to HUngary after the war and used the motif of a poster he had created much earlier – a red man with a hammer – as a poster for the 1947 elections.
He was a friend of my grandparents.
Hello
I’m French, so I hope you will excuse my english !
I’m interesting by Mihaly Biro and his works. Can you give me more informations about him ?
Best regards
Yes, beautiful artwork, especially the posters
Yes, beautiful artwork, especially the posters and, to wit, what u have shown us