And then there was his art collection! Miklós’ apartment was like a Kunst und Wunderkammer to me, except that it was the “Kunst” that also constituted the “Wunder” (though there was also his fine collection of rare Hungarian avant-garde books and his rich library of Hungarian art, history and literature to delve into…). And what a wonderful collection it is! Perusing the walls, the bookshelves, and the graphic art storage cabinets, and reading the dedications on many of the artworks and in many of the books is like reading through an as-yet unwritten history of Hungarian artists’, critics’ and curators’ travels to and connections with New York, an unwritten history of Hungarian-American artistic relations from the 1980s to the 2010s. For this collection is not only important because it contains many important works of art (some 500 pieces, as two of my former art history students, Brennan Smith and Jeffrey Thorsteinson, who first catalogued the collection ascertained ), but because it constitutes a history of Miklós Müller’s personal journey through art. This journey began with the condition that he was the son-in-law of the brilliant art theorist and critic Árpád Mezei (Naomi’s father), but continued through Miklós’ own personal journey across the New York-Hungarian and general Hungarian art scenes of the post-World War II period. Miklós’ collection is thus a Gesamtkunstwerk in itself, a meta-document of a crucial period in the development of Hungarian art. I can only hope that it can stay more or less together in some way.

Dr. Oliver Botar (Ifj. Botár Olivér), Professor, Art History, School of Art, University of Manitoba; Curator, The Salgo Trust for Education, New York

Next page...