When, in October 1954, Oskar serti learned of the death of his friend Theodore Brötski, the dissident painter, he swore to do every possible in honour of his memory. Thanks to the network of connections wich he had patiently woven, Serti succeeded in gathering together the most important members of Budapest’s cultural elite in the house of the deceased, with the secret hope of allying them to his cause.
However, when he proposed to organize an exhibition of the paintings which were in front of them, all of the guests, terrified by their subversive character, lowered their eyes, not daring to say a word.
It was at that precise moment that the curator of the Museum for Decorative Arts and Popular Traditions volunteered to break the embarassing silence of his colleagues. By a clever subterfuge, he avoided the thorny problem of the paintings in question pretending a profond enthusiasm for the wallpaper wich covered the walls of the house’s various rooms.
To everyone’s surprise, Oskar Serti, all too receptive to the slightest hint of interest in anything that approached more or less Theodore Brötski’s universe, forced the imprudent curator to show in his museum these wallpapers, even deprived of their too compromising paintings. Serti did nonetheless insist that the morks of his friend be remembered by respecting the stains wich the paintings had left on the wallpapers.

Opposite: wallpaper fragment from Theodore Brötski’s dining-room, as exhibited in the Museum for Decorative Arts and Popular Traditions.