Since 1989, Westerners have enthusiastically discovered designs long hidden behind the Iron Curtain in Eastern Europe. California based interior designer Judith Hoffman had a very personal interest: Born in Budapest, she fled as a teenager with her family to the West after the failed 1956 rebellion against the Communist regime. As soon as it was possible, she returned to Hungary and was amazed to discover a treasure trove of Modernist design, from Secessionist and Art Deco to the Bauhaus. She returned repeatedly over the next 15 years, collecting pieces by designers both renowned and unknown from galleries, auction houses and rural flee markets.

This past summer, Hoffman opened Szalon in West Hollywood, where she sells furniture and decorative objects by Hungarians like Lajos Kozma – perhaps the country’s best-known native designer – and the celebrated porcelain manufacturer Zsolnay, as well as works imported long ago to Hungary designed by such masters as Josef Hoffmann, Koloman Moser, Joseph Maria Olbrich and Marcel Breuer – a Hungarian not usually associated with his homeland. While clearly party to the trends that gave rise to these styles elsewhere, Hungary – a country long straddling East and West – produced unique manifestations incorporating the richly heterogeneous influences that make the country so fascinating. The Secessionist, or Art Nouveau, works, for example, blend indigenous folk motifs, eastern influences and medieval architectural themes, and are more geometric than their Western counterparts. Hungarian Deco continued to incorporate folk art motifs, but expanded its vocabulary by borrowing from ancient Egyptian, Assyrian, Mayan and Aztec cultures.

Szalon will also offer a program of cultural gatherings starting this fall, 310/657-0089.