The Fejers
Click to jump straight to George Fejer Alex Fejer or Yvonne Fejer
I identify in the tradition of the outsider artist, but I was brought up in a house of colour and design, and have always thought in pictures. My father was a designer in post-war Britain, and my grandfather, was a Hungarian watercolourist.
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I credit my father and grandfather as my teachers as I grew up with the paintings around me. My father came to London fleeing from the Nazis, and his family were murdered in the Holocaust before I was born.
Bloodlines, 2022, mixed media on paper, showing me and the grandfather I never knew.
A romantic encounter
George Fejer came to the UK during World War II, fleeing the Nazis. He made a contribution to interior design which is recognised in the literature of the time, and in the collections of the Victoria and Albert Museum and the Design Museum. He worked on the Festival of Britain, and was involved with the design of Prefabs during and after the war. He was responsible for the Uni-Seco prefab. George was a talented and versatile designer, working on areas as diverse as upholstered furniture and kitchen units, refrigerators and saucepans. Perhaps his most well-known contributions are his collaborations with the kitchen manufacturer Hygena and the furniture manufacturer Guy Rogers. Between them they created many of the iconic looks of the 1960s.
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As well as being a designer George was a consultant and educator, and an accomplished watercolourist. He was a consultant editor for the magazine which is now known as KBB.
Despite being a creative thinker and a great communicator, my father never made much money . He continued to work until the day he died.
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In 1960, George met Yvonne, a young journalist working on House Beautiful magazine. Yvonne liked to tell the story of their first encounter. She was sent to interview him, and told her assistant, in the lift after the interview, "that's the man I'm going to marry. "
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Extract from the article written by my mother for House Beautiful magazine after her first meeting with George Fejer
The House That Love Built
There was a 20 year age difference between the couple, and many of my father's friends disapproved of Yvonne, and thought that she was a flighty young thing who would break my father's heart. Nothing could have been further from the truth. My father owned a plot of land in Wimbledon village on which they built a modern bungalow from glass and wood.
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In 1961, I came along, followed shortly by a sister, brother and menagerie of pets. It was an idyllic childhood. It was only years later that I realised how strange it was that we had no relatives on either side of the family.
Plans and sketches of the house which George and Yvonne built