Tuszkay Márton

Márton Tuszkay was a graphic designer. He studied in Budapest, Berlin and Paris.

From 1911 he worked in Budapest, designed posters and other graphic works. He had several exhibitions during the 1910s. In this period he created many theatre posters, most of them followed the popular narrative and figurative Art Nouveau style of the era. He used strong colors, very delicate typography and contrasting shapes. He created humorous and excellent Art Nouveau poster designs for commercial companies like Unicum and Újság in the 1910s.

During the First World War he remained active: he designed for instance the emblem of the biggest charity fund Auguszta Alap. In 1919 he created great poster designs for the Hungarian Soviet Republic, among them many clear typographic designs.

He was the first one to introduce the German ‘Sachplakat’ style in Hungary. This meant a new approach in advertising: the design is focusing on the image of the advertised product. The style’s greatest advocate was Lucien Bernhardt, whose clear, flat-like but decorative poster style soon became very popular. Tuszkay used something similar for example in his designs for Wicker furniture or for his own studio. The use of strong, differing colors is typical of him; he preferred black background and red text. He was an inventive typographer as well: he liked the little bit archaic, hand-drawn, bold fonts.

In the 1920s his style was changing; it came close to the Expressionism and Modernism. A great example is his design Es führt der Weg, which was probably made after his emigration to Berlin. His design for a market in Kispest (a neighbourhood of Budapest) is a variation of a famous design by Julius Klinger. This shows how close Tuszkay stood to German graphic design during his career. He moved to Berlin, where he continued working as a graphic artist.                                                                                                                     .