MIKSA RÓTH

Miksa Róth (1865-1944) Hungarian glasspainter and mosaic maker

Miksa Róth was the star of glasspainting and mosaic art, a key person of Secession, a reformer, a master, a father, a freemason. He was a colourful and inspiretive person, who – as a pioneer of applied arts – was not only famous and celebrated in Hungary, but all over the world at the turn of the 19-20th century. You can find his works not only in many famous public buildings in Hungary, but in other countries like Mexico, The Netherlands, Norway as well. 

He won many gold and silver medals at the World’s Fairs. We are proud to own and show one of his gold-winner glass mosaic fireplaces and several Secessionist mosaic pictures. 

Miksa Róth was born in Pest in 1865. His father and his grandfather also worked with glass, so he continued the family tradition. He went abroad  for study tour so he could learn from foreign masters in different countries. When he was 20 years old he started to work independently but he also co-operated with famous artists from different fields. He – rewarded by the Emperor and King as a Royal Court’s artist by then – opened his own studio in 1911. It was in Nefelejcs street 26. This is now the building of the Memorial House where he also lived with his family. 

MEMORIAL HOUSE AND COLLECTION

Miksa Róth bought this building in 1911 from Samuel Gelb (who was an owner of a furniture factory) and his friend Samu Petz, the famous architect made the design for reconstructing it. At the same time they built even larger, four-storey building in the back of the yard, it became the workshop. 

After his death and through the communism his wife (Jozefa Walla) and their children lived in 2 rooms in the main building of the Memorial House. One of his daughters (Amália Róth) had presented some of their former furniture and her inherited Róth’s art-works to Erzsébetváros (7th district of Budapest) with the condition that it would become a museum. The memorial house is open for visitors since 1999. 

MISSON STATEMENT

Community, heritage, culture

Our mission is collecting, taking care of different objects, art works and relics connected to the Róth family and showing them for the public.

Our most important aim is to involve as wide audience as possible to learn about our common historical and artistic values. By creating communities and incorporating them into the life of the museum we wish to connect past and present, transforming the institution into a meeting place of modern and traditional values ​​and cultures, a pleasant community space. 

EXHIBITIONS

The exhibition, which provides an insight into the unparalleled richness of Miksa Róth's work, has been waiting for visitors since 2005 in the ground floor exhibition of the Róth Miksa Memorial House and Collection. It features many of the master's outstanding works of glass art, the uniqueness of them, in addition to their beauty, also lies in their technical, applied-art and historical aspects. 

Apartment museum 

The apartment museum on the first floor of the Memorial House invites our visitors to a real time- travel. As a result of the storms of history, no upper-middle-class apartment interior of the early 20th century had remained unchanged anywhere else in Budapest. Our exhibition provides an insight into the history of lifestyle and everyday life in addition to the history of the Róth family. Miksa Róth's inkwell tells about human destinies and family stories, the window glasses he designed for the family living room survived wars, the chandelier once operated with half electricity and half gas reveals exciting secrets of the history of technology. 

The rooms furnished beautifully and decorated with fine art-works of his friends and Róth creations with their special atmosphere bring you back to the adventurous past of a brilliant master, to a family-story with ups and downs during the 20th century.

Mosaic and glass art

Our upstairs chamber exhibition presents a selection of Miksa Róth's mosaic and glass art, as well as the master's glass art collection. The exciting symbolism and material use innovations are already outstanding in themselves, but the object stories that place the works in context reveal much about Miksa Róth, the person and his contemporaries. You can see here some works done in co-operation with the Zsolnay factory, his original sign-board, the mosaic picture what won silver medal at the Paris World's Fair, and the window of the Andrássy dining room designed by Rippl-Rónai among many others.