'For the Love of Labour’: The Ceramic Art of Margit Kovács (1902–77)

Hungarian-born ceramicist-sculptor Margit Kovács (1902–77) set up her pottery studio in Budapest in 1934 and employed assistants to help with mass-production. The scope and diversity of her oeuvre is emblematic of Central-Europe’s interwar industrial design culture and the aesthetic ideals of post-war Socialist Realism, ranging from architectural ornaments to terracotta sculptures and painted wall-tiles. After the 1949 political shift to communism, Kovács became a popular ceramicist of the Hungarian diaspora worldwide and her clay figurines were mass-produced and sold in state-owned arts and crafts shops. The artist often expressed her ‘love for labour’ and the ‘joy of art-making’ as physical work, which, particularly during the 1950s, resonated with peacetime reconstruction and socialist work ethics. This paper examines Margit Kovács’ art produced in the 1950s-60s, arguing that Kovács had a remarkable astuteness to find equilibrium between ‘made to order’ craft and creative art-making. I inquire into the extent to which Kovács’ approach to applied art, and the medium of clay presented an advantage during the onset of communism and I examine the ways she adapted to the changing political climate in terms of her choice of subject matter and the production, display and dissemination of her work.