Nobel Week in Stockholm – December 1937

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Winter in modern-day Stockholm. An enchanting bird’s-eye view of the Swedish capital, which provides the setting for the Nobel Week. In the distance, on the right, stands the grand City Hall building on the shores of one of Lake Mälaren’s bays (Riddarfjärden, or Knight’s Bay), serving as the venue for the traditional Nobel Prize award banquet, held on December 10.

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We begin our coverage of the Nobel Week in Stockholm with a portrait of Szent-Györgyi, commissioned by him, for the Nobel Foundation, from Béla Kováts, a photographer based in Szeged. To this day, the Foundation requests a portrait of each laureate for its own future use. It is this photograph of the charming professor that appears both in the publication Les Prix Nobel en 1937 and on the website of the Nobel Prize Organization.

On December 4, just three days after becoming an honorary citizen, Szent-Györgyi left Szeged for the Swedish capital to receive the Nobel Prize on December 10. He was accompanied by his wife, who had her seamstress create three “simple and tasteful” outfits for the celebrations in Stockholm. The press was eager to reassure the people of Szeged that the Szent-Györgyi family had completed all the necessary preparations smoothly and on time. The papers also provided details of their itinerary: the party would travel by car to Budapest, then continue by train to Berlin via Prague. It was apparently in Budapest that they were joined by Pontifical Chamberlain Dr. Miklós Knébel, the special correspondent for the Hungarian radio. In Berlin, the couple’s daughter, who was studying in Cambridge at the time, also linked up with the small traveling party.