ART+AUCTION
June 2004

New Location for Old World Style

By Eve M. Kahn

Hungarian Art Nouveau, Art Deco and modern design is coming into its own halfway across the world from Budapest - in West Hollywood. Interior designer Judith Hoffman is opening Szalon, on June 25, at 910 North La Cienega Boulevard, focusing on early 20th century pieces from Austria-Hungary. Her initial offerings include film noir posters from Budapest ($1,200-4,000) and 1910s armchairs by Vienna Secessionist Joseph Maria Olbrich ($5,700 for two).

Across the street at the three-year –old gallery L.A. Moderne, owner Kim Veloso sells similar material, “This area has one of the densest concentrations of Central European Art Deco dealers around,” says Veloso.

Both dealers specialize in works by Lajos Kozma, a key Hungarian modernist. Veloso has sold Kozma’s distinctive wood and tubular chairs to Hollywood set designers and fashion designers. Hoffman is showing Kozma in a restrained mood, with a pair of 1930s recliners with walnut S-shaped arms ($6,000), and at his most effusive, with a 1930s secrétaire with an inlaid starburst ($15,000).

Hoffman makes regular buying trips to Hungary. “There’s still a lot of good stuff in the hands of old families who don’t quite know what they have,” she says, “though they’re not bashful about asking the real price.”

Szalon offers the kind of furniture that Hoffman’s prosperous Jewish family had before World War II. (The family lost everything and eventually fled to the U.S. in the 1950s during the Soviet crackdown.)

Hoffman’s goal, she says, “is to acquaint people with this incredible culture. Starting the gallery isn’t really a business decision-it’s my mission.”