HistoryA Facinating Collection of Hungarian Sign Painting Photos, 19061976Women feature prominently in these archival images of signs and sign painters at work in Hungary.Better LettersNov 7, 2024 5 min readOutlining with a mahl stick as a straight edge in Hungary, 1976. Photo: Fortepan / FFOT.Tom Koch is currently working on a museum project for the Austrian city of Eisenstadt, which will include a permanent sign painting exhibit. To give context to some of the objects, he asked if I had any archival photos of sign painters at work. In addition to various 'Ye Olde Sign Shoppe' posts, I shared some other pictures from my collection, including this one from Hungary in 1965.Photo: Fortepan / UVATERV (97080).I can't recall where I got the photo, but Tom quickly tracked down its original source in the brilliant Fortepan photographic archive. Searching within this, he then unearthed even more archival sign and sign painting photos from Hungary. The pictures span a period of 70 yearsfrom 1906 to 1976and show work in progress on a variety of different sign types.One thing that immediately struck me was how prominently women sign painters feature among the photos, and I wondered why. It turns out that the majority of them were taken during Hungary's Communist era, which Wikipedia describes as a time when women had "greater access to secondary and university education, especially in technical fields" and were "included in the workforce in a more equal way". These images bear that out, and buck the trend of most archival sign painting photos that I've seen to date.The following are presented in reverse chronological order for your enjoyment, and thank you Tom for sharing this wonderful collection.1970sThis series of six photos were all taken in the same sign shop in 1976, but there are no details of its name or location.Photos: Fortepan / FFOT.Here are some closer crops.Photos: Fortepan / FFOT (207023).Photos: Fortepan / FFOT (207022).Photos: Fortepan / FFOT (207020).Livery work in progress at the IKARUS bus factory in Budapest, 1976.Photo: Fortepan / UVATERV (99391).Bareback brushwork, 1976.Photo: Fortepan / FFOT (207025).Publicity for a jazz festival in Cegld, 1970.Photo: Fortepan / Pterffy Istvn (142627).A closer look at some of those letters.Photo: Fortepan / Pterffy Istvn (142627).1960sAdding a shade to some transom lettering in Gyr, 1966.Photo: Fortepan / Kriss Gza (191969).Photo: Fortepan / Kriss Gza (191969).Heraldry practise at an art college in Pcs, 1963.Photo: Fortepan / Hunyady Jzsef (107131).Mural signs in Budapest, 1961.Photo: Fortepan / Mra Andrs (114992).Father and son? 1960.Photo: Fortepan / Rcz Vekerdi Gyuln (250188).1950sTank insignia from Budapest in 1956, the year of the Hungarian Revolution.Photo: Fortepan / Kurutz Mrton (12337).Kcs village in 1953. Kacsa (no accent on the first a) means 'duck', and the village joker at work is the Hungarian painter and graphic designer Szalai Zoltn.Photo: Fortepan / Szalai Zoltn (204500).1943That's a huge mahl stick!Fortepan / Wein Sarolta (19703).1938An airbrush is also being used to paint this film poster for Black Diamonds.Photo: Fortepan / Fortepan (26394).Teamwork makes the dream work: adding a long text to the agricultural scenes on this mural.Photo: Fortepan / Ormos Imre Alaptvny (173220).1906This is the oldest image in the collection, with a mixture of pictorial and lettering work in progress.Photo: Fortepan / Zichy kria, Zala (263436).Photo: Fortepan / Zichy kria, Zala (263436).Bonus PhotosThere are also some nice photos from outside of Hungary in the collection.Ludwigsfelde, Germany, 1966This sign painter is adding monthly performance data to this board outside the IFA truck factory: unser ziel (our goal) and planerfllung (plan fulfillment).Photo: Fortepan / Bojr Sndor (179542).Photo: Fortepan / Bojr Sndor (179542).Prague, Czech Republic, 1960Aging neon and a painted billboard; what's not to like!Photo: Fortepan / UWM Libraries (259136).Photo: Fortepan / UWM Libraries (259133).Fortepan is a copyright-free and community-based photo archive with over 100,000 photographs available for anyone to browse and download in high-resolution, free of charge. It currently contains 36 photos tagged with 'sign painter'.More Ye Olde Sign ShoppeMore History