“Remaining human amidst inhumanity”
The OMIKE Artists’ Action, 1939–1944
MúzeumCafé 34.
The idea of establishing the National Hungarian Jewish Cultural Society (OMIKE) was first raised in 1887. Then in 1908 Simon Hevesi called for a Jewish social and cultural organisation. OMIKE was founded the following year and functioned until spring 1944. The founders and managers included industrialist and art collector Baron Adolf Kohner and MP Pál Farkas-Wolfner. Their expressed aim was that “… Hungary’s 800,000 Jews should consciously participate in the cultural activities of Hungarians.” Lipót Herman and Ernő Barta initiated courses on painting and sculpting for talented young people who were not allowed to attend higher education as a result of the 1920 discriminatory law known as numerus clausus. Up to 20 artists could study at the school which provided studios and the OMIKE-Joint canteen would have ensured their provisions. The OMIKE fine arts free school had 328 students, while 256 studied at the school of graphic art. The OMIKE Cultural Council launched its ‘Artists’ Action’ in 1939. It operated until 19 March 1944 when the society, along with other Jewish associations, was banned. Six art exhibitions presenting (and selling according to some of the aims) nearly one thousand works by 165 artists were under the auspices of the Artists’ Action in the Hungarian Jewish Museum, the Üllői Road premises of OMIKE and the Jewish Women’s Association in Buda between December 1939 and February 1944. Many of the exhibited works can be found in public collections and several can be discovered in the art trade. The exhibition recalling OMIKE’s Artists’ Action during spring 2013 in the Hungarian Jewish Museum is not a reconstruction but an attempt to display as many identifiable works as possible, including those by artists who are less known to both the public and professionals.