30×30
István Hoffmann's vision of contemporary collecting

Gábor Ébli

Icon image: Károly Hopp-Halász: Willy ╱ 2004 ╱ acrylic on canvas, photo ╱ 30×30 cm

Cover image: Gyula Konkoly: Nyár ╱ Summer ╱ 2007 ╱ oil on canvas ╱ 30×30 cm

István Hoffmann (1949–2020) was already an experienced collector at the time. He owed his inspiration for fine art to his primary school art teacher, Károly Kreisz, who brought art closer to the students of the Máriaremete school in a relaxed form, combining it with outdoor recreation and sports. The boy, who was a high-level pentathlete – he went to the city every morning at six o’clock to swim and remained a staunch supporter of Vasas until the end of his life – was already a member of the Kassák Club in secondary school, and then a regular visitor to the Kunsthalle (Műcsarnok) and other exhibition venues. His favourite artist at the time was Sándor Bortnyik.

The youngest of five children, he graduated as an engineer and in the second half of the 1980s began to earn enough to consider purchasing works of art. He frequented the Czóbel Museum in Szentendre and noticed the newly opened Artéria Gallery, run by art historian Tibor Wehner and gallery owner Johan van Dam. His first purchase here was a work by László feLugossy, paid for in monthly instalments of two thousand forints. He developed a lasting attachment to the artists of Szentendre, from Pál Deim to István Regős, and particularly enjoyed the provocative art of András Wahorn, even having one of his wooden sculptures cast in metal.

Although he also bought classical modern works, he later parted with them, and from the outset he was essentially attracted by the discovery and visual inspiration inherent in contemporary art, as well as the friendships he formed with the artists. He closely followed the careers of some ten artists, from Tamás Konok to Zoltán Tölg-Molnár, and his collection reflects the periods that are important to him. Together with his wife, he designed their family home in the Danube Bend so that works by Károly Klimó, Gábor Záborszky and other artists became part of the museum-quality interior design.

The first article about the collection and the house was published in the 2003/6 issue of Műértő. That year, at the invitation of the organisers of the KunstKöln fair, contemporary Hungarian art was represented by a selection of individual works from several private collections, including István Hoffmann’s collection (curators: Mónika Perenyey and Erzsébet Pilinger). The collection is featured in the 2008 edition of Edge Communications’ annual art collection booklet, and in 2009, at the suggestion of Károly Klimó, the collection’s first independent exhibition is held at the French Institute. In 2010, Zsolt Petrányi invited the collection to the Műcsarnok’s highly significant exhibition entitled Art Fanatics, which presented one private collection per room. The collection returned here in 2017, now focusing on its new 30×30 format: the Műcsarnok presented some two hundred works from the small but representative collection of Hungarian art from 1985 to 2015, accompanied by a comprehensive album financed by the collector.

The collector spent several years consciously compiling this selection, which ranges from János Aknay to Sándor Zoltán. He drew up a broad list, which he then narrowed down, and, while allowing for his own subjectivity, he endeavoured to invite artists whose work would give the selection a more general representation of the era. In line with this, he included a large number of works not only by fine artists in the strict sense, but also by applied artists. Just as György Buczkó is one of the defining artists of the broadly defined Hoffmann collection, the 30×30 collection also includes numerous glass artists, from Péter Borkovics to Péter Botos. Textile art is represented by Margit Czakó and Anna Regős, metal sculpture by Tibor Budahelyi and Rezső Móder, among others, and ceramics by Antal Pázmándi and Imre Schrammel. The range of generations is also wide, from experimental young artists such as Bertalan Babos Zsili to classics such as Imre Bak.

The wide range of technical imaging techniques is particularly noteworthy. Attila Csáji is represented by his laser superposition photograph No. XIII from the series Imaginary Lights, Tamás Díner by his photograph of an egg elevated to an object with a transcendent aura, and János Eifert by his nude photograph Mother Earth. Péter Tamás Halász’s light object glimmering on a dark background can also be interpreted as the presence of spheres higher than the everyday, while Tamás Komoróczky’s c-print entitled Head explores what our consciousness is made of in our technological world.

Károly Hopp-Halász applies photographs of the desired male body to his geometrically pure acrylic painting, while Klára Kuchta’s hologram (Sámson) confronts the viewer with different views of the male hero, depending on the viewing angle. Éva Köves transferred photographs of building structures onto canvas before painting over them according to her own logic, while Csaba Polgár covered the surface of the canvas, which can be interpreted as a window, with the light imprint of an open window.

Sándor Pinczehelyi looks directly into the camera, while György Konkoly-Thege evoked a pensive portrait from a girl’s face captured during his trip to India. Commercial photography and advertising graphics were not left out either; Hajnal Németh and Sándor Rácmolnár manipulated a record, a cover and their images into works of art. From Miklós Sulyok’s lyrical photograph of Lake Balaton to Péter Szarka’s computer-generated print and Szabolcs Szilágyi’s video, the entire spectrum of technical still and moving images is represented in the 30×30 collection, demonstrating how much István Hoffmann strove to include other artistic trends of the era in this collection, beyond his own taste.

Over the course of three decades, he built up two collections: the Hoffmann Collection, which expanded from the late 1980s onwards, from Áron Gábor to Péter Türk, with numerous international positions, such as the works of René Rietmeyer from the Netherlands and Jiro Okura from Japan, and the 30×30 collection, for which he wanted to find an institutional home. Ultimately, this did not happen, and recently, numerous works from both collections became available for purchase at the Virág Judit Gallery’s October 2024 auction (15th post-war and contemporary sale) and the Szikra Gallery’s summer 2025 exhibition.

Most of the collection remained in the family’s possession. István Hoffmann’s now grown-up children and his wife live with the artworks, just as Hoffmann himself lived with art, drawing inspiration from it every day through the unique design of their family home and personal encounters with the artists. His professional work was also reflected in the development of the collection, and his engineering mindset is clearly evident in his numerous geometric acquisitions, from Attila Kovács to István Nádler to András Wolsky. His technical and practical thinking also contributed to his openness to material-based creative processes, and thus he acquired a wide range of sculptures, from Márton Barabás to Gábor Heritesz and János Polyák. When I think back on my visit to their home, I would describe the collection as a whole as a spatial installation. This collection = family home was a total work of art comprising materials, surfaces and motifs. Hoffmann was also a committed fan of classical music, so he experienced the collection of works as a series of harmonies.

The ten or so artists at the core of the collection – to list a few not yet mentioned, Tamás Soós and Péter Ujházi – were literally Hoffmann’s contemporaries. The 1980s and 1990s, a period of cultural change in the broadest sense, brought greater freedom to both the artists and the collector; their friendship and the process of collecting itself became a defining element of István Hoffmann’s life. He stood by his decisions and continued to support artists in his collection even when they did not become as successful as others. He clearly sought to influence others with his collection: visitors to his company’s Budapest studio were greeted by contemporary works of art, he responded to the call to expand the Ludwig Museum’s collection by purchasing a work of art for each company when the museum was founded, and he also compiled the 30×30 collection with the intention of educating people about the visual arts.

In aesthetic terms, his main message was to value the different branches of creative art equally. Amidst the dominance of painting in Hungary, this was a bold stand in favour of other forms of object creation.