Gustav Seiden was born to a Jewish family in Budapest, Austria-Hungary (now Hungary) in 1900. Inspired by his uncle, who had a vast art collection, he tried unsuccessfully in Paris and then in Budapest to establish himself as an art dealer; taking up photography as a hobby in 1930, he became one of Hungary's most renowned amateur photographers of the time. Following the Hungarian uprising of 1956, he moved to London, where he established the Chiltern Art Gallery, specialising in Hungarian émigré artists, later widening its remit to encompass international modernism.
Photographer, gallerist and art dealer, Gustav Seiden was born in 1900 to a Jewish family in Budapest, Austria-Hungary (now Hungary). He excelled in natural sciences but was unable to attend the University of Medicine to become a doctor due to the 'numerus clausus' laws first introduced in 1920, limiting the number of students of Jewish origin admitted to universities in Hungary. He thus became an apprentice in his father's textile shop. His uncle, Gustav Silberstein, had a vast art collection in Vienna which Seiden always admired; hence, he went to Paris in 1926 to try his hand at art dealing, but without success. However, upon his return to Hungary, his second attempt at dealing was more successful, as he widened his scope to encompass antiques and furniture – while taking up photography as a hobby in 1930. He possessed both sophisticated equipment and a thorough knowledge of the visual arts and became one of the most renowned amateur photographers of the decade in Hungary, producing ‘modernist images characterised by optical clarity and roving viewpoints’ (V&A website). Seiden exhibited internationally, and alongside such notables as Edward Weston, Ansel Adams and others, his work appeared in the pages of the Modern Photography yearbooks. In 1934 he was awarded a gold medal at the Milan International Exhibition of Applied Arts and contributed a photograph entitled Who’s Afraid of the Big Bad Wolf to the Royal Photographic Society Annual Exhibition. The following year, his photograph Le Pêcheur [The Fisherman] was featured in the London Salon of Photography Exhibition at the RWS Galleries and reproduced in the magazine The Bystander (Vol. 127, 25 September 1935, p. 512). In 1936 the London-based journal Photography published an article profiling his photography, which was strongly influenced by the New Objectivity movement. Seiden also became friends with leading Hungarian modernist painters, such as Lajos Vajda and his wife, Júlia Vajda, and Béla Czóbel, and he became both artists' sole agent from 1937.
Due to the rise of anti-Semitism, Seiden's photographic work became increasingly neglected and his international commissions ceased almost completely – one of his last photos was published in the English magazine, Modern Photography in 1938. Moreover, deteriorating eyesight and lack of materials during the Second World War made it even more difficult for him to continue. Following the outbreak of the war, many members of Seiden's family were affected: his mother and younger brother perished in concentration camps, while his second wife, Tessa Rózsahegyi, endured long months both in Dachau and Bergen-Belsen before liberation. Seiden himself was subjected to forced labour and was protecting his one-year-old child in the Budapest ghetto when the Soviets liberated the capital. After the war, he established himself again as a fine art dealer, mainly working in 20th-century and contemporary art. However, with the introduction of the socialist regime, his artworks were confiscated (he could only keep 25 paintings from his entire collection) and his gallery was closed by the state.
Following the Hungarian uprising of 1956, Seiden applied for an emigrant visa and settled with his family in London in 1957. He opened his new art gallery, the Chiltern Art Gallery, near the Wallace Collection in Marylebone in 1958. He initially specialised in Hungarian émigré artists, later widening his scope to embrace international modernism. He began collecting again, mainly drawings by Hungarian artists, including László Kalapos Mednyánszky, József Rippl-Rónai, and Lajos Gulácsy. Simultaneously, he rented out one of the gallery spaces to fellow Hungarian émigré artist, Endre Bőszin, to house exhibitions of his neo-expressionist group, Taurus Artists, in the early 1960s. However, one of his letters to Júlia Vajda dated 1962 reveals the hardships Seiden had to bear when establishing his early career in the busy London art scene; when Júlia asked whether he would like to buy paintings by her late husband, Seiden wrote: 'Unfortunately, acquiring a picture by Vajda is out of the question, as establishing a gallery and maintaining a family takes so much out of me fiscally that a private purchase is out of the question, and I couldn't sell it here, because here the English only buy well-known names, and sadly they haven't heard of Hungarian painters' (as cited by Kozák, 2012). Consequently, he also embraced popular British modernists, such as Anne Redpath, Jacob Epstein and Bruce Clark, and British, French, Italian and Dutch old master drawings. Seiden became a naturalised British subject in 1963. His gallery initially closed its doors in 1980, when he retired, but he continued to welcome private collectors to buy from his home, and eventually he reopened his gallery in Piccadilly in 1983.
Gustav Seiden died at home in London, England on 29 September 1992. The Victoria and Albert Museum holds one photograph by Seiden. Seiden’s collection of old master drawings was sold at Christie’s London in 1993 and 1996.
Consult items in the Ben Uri archive related to [Gustav Seiden]
Publications related to [Gustav Seiden] in the Ben Uri Library