Folk Art And Fashions At The Library

By Jan Howard

Hungarian folk art and gowns of the early 20th Century are two exhibits being featured at the Cyrenius H. Booth Library through August.

The folk art is exhibited on the second floor in the display cases to the left of the circulation desk. The gowns and other vintage clothing are on display in the dining room on the third floor.

Edith Szati of Newtown has been collecting Hungarian folk art since the early 1960s. She has purchased some items when visiting Hungary and has received others as gifts from friends and family who have traveled there.

“It’s from the country where I was born. It is part of my heritage,” Ms Szati said. “I was taught some of this work in school, such as embroidery. I saved my pieces I made at age 10 or 12.”

Hungarian folk art is known throughout the world, she said. Her collection includes embroidery work, drawn thread work with embroidery, hand-painted porcelain plates and other items, sterling silver items, appliqued book covers, ladies’ embroidered and smocked blouses, a felt lady’s vest with white felt fringe and embroidery, and a doll wearing traditional Hungarian clothing.

Examples of Hungarian folk art can be found in import shops in New York City, Ms Szatai said. “There are two or three Hungarian stores that specialize in bringing this into the country.”

The hand-painted porcelain items have been produced for 500 years in the Herend factory, named after the town where it is located, Ms Szatai said. She once met a young man in a store in Connecticut who had been sent by the factory to familiarize Americans with the folk art.

“He had an assortment of brushes and paints,” she said. “It was a tradition that was handed down from his father who was also an artist.”

A porcelain wine jug with a snake design warns of too much wine. “The snake on the jug signifies that wine is not good for you,” she said. “It says to beware of drinking too much wine.”

She explained that tradesmen would each have a jug bearing a symbol of their trade, such as a hammer. “They had the same custom in England,” she noted.

Ms Szatai displays the sterling silver salt and pepper shakers and sugar bowl in a cabinet, but they were meant to be in use, she said. A porcelain egg comes apart so it can be used for candy or as a container for a gift, such as a ring.

Embroidery is a dying art in Hungary, Ms Szatai said, because young women are now working outside the home. However, the cottage industry is still practiced by older women in the villages. They make several embroidered items and then sell them on the street corners in Budapest. They also offer made to order items.

“I hate to see it die out,” Ms Szatai said, adding that one embroidery piece may take about three years to complete.

Ms Szatai said she has worn embroidered blouses and other Hungarian dress on special occasions, such as in 1972 when Cardinal Mindszenthi of Hungary came to the United States. “My daughter and I dressed in Hungarian dress to greet him,” she said.

 The black felt embroidery of a pillow in the collection is a centuries-old design that goes back 300 to 400 years, she said. “I did one of those in school myself.” She also completed one in red that was embroidered with blue thread. “It took me a whole semester in school to make a pillow.”

The clothing exhibited on the third floor is a new collection donated to the library by Vern Knapp, a longtime resident of Newtown. The 1900 era gowns were worn by Mrs Knapp’s mother, Mrs Harold Smith. The family resided in Flushing, L.I., until her mother’s death.

“We moved to Newtown after mother died,” Mrs Knapp said. ““My mother died when I was four years old. My father packed away her clothes in a trunk, even to her pocketbook with her steel-rim eyeglasses in it.

 “I never looked in it until after my father died. It was locked,” she said. “I got the trunk after my father died in 1954. I found a brown and tan afghan that had been mine as a baby.” She also recognized her mother’s white flannel robe with pink roses on it.

“It was quite a shock when I saw the things and recognized them. I was only four when she died.”

After seeing the items in the trunk and reliving the memories they brought back, Mrs Knapp repacked them and put them away for sentimental reasons.

“All the dresses must have been worn by her before she was married,” Mrs Knapp said. “In pictures taken after she was married, she wore dark clothes.”

Mrs Knapp said that, though she was young, she has flashes of memories about her mother. “I remember her being on a daybed. She was ill for a long time with TB. Though I didn’t see her very much because of her illness, I remember her once handing me a package of enamel pins with pink roses on them. They were used to hold children’s clothing together at the shoulders.”

 The exhibit also features two scrapbooks, one illustrating fashions from 1897 to 1947 and the other containing photographs by H.N. Tiemann, Sr, of a fashion show that was held in the early 1930s to celebrate the opening of the library. The models were local women.