Presentation

Before starting dealing with the core topic of this website dedicated to Horace Hurm and his Works, it seemed important to me to start presenting myself, and explaining my approach.

It's been more than 30 years now that I'm a collector, and that I frequent the artistic world, and more precisely the world of antiques-as an amateur and not an expert, but as a well-informed amateur.
* The title of < expert > is certified by an official diploma that I don't have.

The ancient electric scientific equipment and the wireless telephony and telegraphy are my chosen fields, and Horace Hurm's branded products my specialty.

Why did I choose Horace Hurm rather than another manufacturer?

The evolution of a collection and, of course, of the collector, is generally speaking always the same.
First, you gather everything you can find (buying or gift) about the topic. It is obvious that the budget you can afford determines the choice.

Then, as your knowledge and your financial situation are evolving, you finally focus on a particular theme, period or brand. In fine, the collection gets structured.

I also got through this evolution, with the wireless telephony and telegraphy equipment, and the documentation concerning Horace Hurm.

This choice roots beyond the quality or the rarity of this equipment-it is his entire Works, the Man he was, as well as his intellectual approach that interested me.

My approach

It came in 2 phases:

Firstly, the writing of a book dedicated to Horace Hurm.

« Horace HURM (1880-1958), le kaleidoscope de sa vie” (Horace HURM (1880-1958), the kaleidoscope of his life ».

This illustrated book mixes biography and autobiography, and is willingly limited to one hundred numbered copies. You will find all the reasons that pushed me to start writing in the "Book" tab.

Secondly, the creation of a website.

If writing is a personal approach aiming at the publication of a book, in my case this publication was willingly intimist and confidential. But as such, how to solve this paradox-to limit the publication of a book while trying to introduce and share my passion?
The answer is naturally by creating a website.

Here is a quotation from the first page of Horace HURM memoirs :

Doesn’t the « Nations’ wisdom » state that
« once, boredom was born from uniformity ? »

Trying to know or understand Hurm’s universe without taking into account the economic and social context he was living into, as well as philosophical approaches, wars and their consequences, would be a mistake. Just like trying to explain his approach only from a technical point of view, without any consideration for his intellectual approach.

Thus it seemed more coherent to me to gather these two aspects: technique and Art. It is also more accurate and coherent to talk to you about the man—his qualities, his faults—in using his own memoirs to recover the essential elements about him.

Aesthete and artist, Horace Hurm was an atypical engineer. The shapes of his creations—big “bugs”, extremely refined with an avant-garde design—still please us. An osmosis between something functional and rational, and really different from the other manufacturers of TSF.
Besides Horace never departed from his line of conduct he set himself when he was young:

« I will only deal with what I like »

Horace Hurm would never be in the innermost circle of the « Grands » even if he was present and actively involved in all the higher representative authorities of his corporation.
Far from the spirit of the consumption society (not to say consumerist), he would always do differently, concerning his way of being as well as his production.

And even if, according to some of his contemporaries, Horace Hurm was only a “musician” or a “pleasant charlatan”, it remains that today, he’s one of the TSF manufacturers whose equipment is the most rare and searched out by collectors.

Tribute to his Work, the Work of a real Artist

Cap-in-hand, M. Hurm

Bruno RUIZ