Lajos Hevesi, Vienna’s most prominent critic at the turn of the century
He wanted to be a doctor, was called to be a journalist and became a critic
MúzeumCafé 15.
A hundred years ago, on 27 February 1910, an elderly gentleman called Ludwig Hevesi, the eminence grise of Viennese art life, put a bullet through his head in his home in Vienna. It is still a mystery why the reserved critic, who was respected by all and dearly loved by many, unexpectedly committed suicide. The entire art and literary elite of the imperial capital, including Gustav Klimt, Otto Wagner, Hermann Bahr and Arthur Schnitzler, attended his funeral and all the prominent dailies published front page obituaries. Today he is little known, not only in Hungary but also in Austria. Specialists mostly know only his works of art criticism, Acht Jahre Secessiont and Altkunst – Neukunst: Wien 1894–1908, or a two-volume summary, Oesterreichische Kunst im 19-ten Jahrhundert. Researchers still use these colourfully written source books for information relating to Art Nouveau exhibitions or when writing about artists and analysing their paintings. It was not generally known that Hevesi had Hungarian roots, and although he became entirely Viennese his identity was complex. He never gave up his Hungarian citizenship, travelled with a Hungarian passport, had a Kossuth beard and wore a braided black Hungarian jacket. His Viennese friends knew he was Hungarian, but only few were aware of his Jewish origin and that his original name was Lővy. As a young journalist he had literary ambitions, and among friends he was known for his sense of humour and fine irony. Besides his weekly articles Pester Briefe (Letters from Pest) and the Pester Bagatellen, he also reported on cultural events in Viennna under the heading Wiener Briefe. In 1871 he began publishing his fictional series for young people, The Adventures of András Jelki, which was highly popular. In 1873 Hevesi wrote the first guidebook to the unified Hungarian capital in Hungarian and German. With such a start the perfectly bilingual, hopeful young journalist could have become a prominent Hungarian writer, but he moved to Vienna in 1875. His friend Lajos Dóczi, a high ranking official and writer, obtained an editorial job for Hevesi with Fremdenblatt, the semi-official daily of the Monarchy’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs. He became the editor of the theatre and art column. It was obvious that Hevesi was an excellent aesthetic reviewer and art critic, whether the subject was the theatre, a building, a statue or a painting. It soon turned out that Vienna had acquired a sharp-eyed, highly educated and sensitive art critic in Hevesi, whose writings were not only read in the imperial city but everywhere where German was spoken. Hevesi reported on every significant exhibition, inauguration of a new building or statue in Vienna. Although his job specifications stipulated that he was not to write for any other Austrian or German paper, it can’t have been taken too seriously since, in addition to Fremdenblatt, from 1876 he regularly contributed to Pester Lloyd. Until his death he wrote for both the Viennese and the Hungarian (Budapest) press often about the same exhibition with different emphasis, wisely adapting his message.