Budapest was one of the great centers of modernist art production in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. It was, to be sure, not on a par with Paris, Berlin, or Munich, but it was, nevertheless, a significant site of artistic innovation. Yet it remains hardly known except to those with a special interest in Hungary. This is partly due to the fact that few art historians have even rudimentary language skills. Partly, too, it is due to the bewildering array of art movements and groups that came into being and swiftly vanished, without any clear aesthetic agenda that could help to identify them. While it had a smaller art world than that of the Parisian metropolis, Budapest was in many respects more complex and more difficult to map.

This book therefore performs an invaluable service in offering a clear and rigorously researched analysis of modernism in the Hungarian capital. It is not, however, an analysis of artistic practices but rather an account of the interweaving of nascent modernism and the emergence of the art market. The story of art in late-Habsburg Budapest is very similar to that of Paris at the same time; a growth in the number of art schools and academies led to an oversupply of artists who struggled to exhibit with the traditional institutions and artistic organizations due to a lack of exhibiting capacity. Faced with a lack of opportunities some, such as Mihály Munkácsy, pursued careers abroad, but this was not an option available for many and, as a consequence, a stream of alternative institutions were established in quick succession.

Secession was thus driven not by an aesthetic ideology but by the drive to make a career when it seemed the possibilities afforded by the official channels were limited. This has important methodological consequences, for when writing about Hungarian modernism we have to recognize, Taylor argues, that being “modern” was as much about adopting entrepreneurial strategies for the exhibiting and selling of art as it was about devising new forms of representation and expression. This explains, too, why in certain respects much Hungarian modern art seemed rather “belated” and dependent on French models of several decades earlier.

The proliferation of artistic associations, private galleries, and dealers did nothing, however, to alter a basic fact: the Hungarian art market was too small to sustain the number of artists practicing, with too few collectors and buyers. Eventually, they either went under (in the case of many private dealers) or had to rely on state subsidies. Yet responses to the situation failed to identity this basic problem. Instead, the management and leadership of the exhibition venues were blamed for a lack of vision and competence. Competing factions struggled for control, leading to division and the demise of many. In addition, xenophobic resentment built up at the success of foreign artists, whose works commanded higher prices. Taylor has undertaken some highly impressive research here into sales, and few artists could boast of financial success.

This book does well to analyze these events in some detail, and is the first English-language study to do so. It provides an extremely helpful guide through the complex and shifting terrain of the Budapest art scene around the turn of the century. It is a pity that it provides very little attention to the market itself. Who were the main buyers of modern art? Were there notable art collectors? What were their social and cultural backgrounds? Why was there such a small art market in Budapest? Was this related to broader aspects of the social structure of Hungary at that time? Answers to these questions might have provided a more comprehensive account.

This is still a fine book, but it is marred by a number of flaws. It has many illustrations, but most of them are of very poor quality and serve little purpose. In addition, the appendix contains of a list of exhibitions from 1840 to 1916. It purports to indicate the number of works exhibited, but this information has been left out and, furthermore, everything remains untranslated from Hungarian. This is a pity, because more attention to such details and higher production values would have made for a significantly better volume.