Imre Varga (sculptor)

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Imre Varga (2004)

Imre Varga (born November 1, 1923 in Siófok ; † December 9, 2019 in Budapest ) was a Hungarian sculptor , painter, designer and graphic artist .

Life

Even when he was still at school, Varga's drawings were shown in small exhibitions. But first Varga studied aeronautics at the Military Academy in Budapest and graduated with a diploma. During the Second World War he served as an air force officer. In 1945 he returned to Hungary from captivity. From then on, Varga turned to the fine arts . He studied from 1950 to 1956 at the Hungarian Academy of Fine Arts in Budapest with Sándor Mikus and Pál Pátzay and graduated in 1956. During his subsequent study trips, he also came to western countries.

Since then, Varga has been active in all areas of sculpture. He made small statues and coins as well as monumental compositions for public spaces. He also worked as a painter, graphic artist and designer.

With his statue “Iron Worker” he took part in the first “Hungarian Exhibition of Fine Arts”, his first ever exhibition. His first highly acclaimed work was his “Prometheus” in 1965. In the 1970s, he broke away from the monumentalism common in communist countries. Later his work ranged from Lenin statues to Holocaust sculptures to statues of Franz II. Rákóczi , Raoul Wallenberg , Sir Winston Churchill and Béla Bartók to Adenauer and de Gaulle . Around 300 of his works can be seen in nine countries, including Germany. After the fall of the Wall, his Béla Kun group from 1986 was "disposed of" together with the communist monumental sculptures by other sculptors on the outskirts of Budapest in the Szobor Park . However, it is "the only statue from the time before 1989 that many Budapesters like to return to Downtown would pick up ”.

Exhibitions

From August 15 to September 27, 1981, the Imre Varga exhibition took place in Berlin-Mitte in the Galerie am Weidendamm in Friedrichstrasse. The organizer was the Center for Art Exhibitions in the GDR. In 1984 he exhibited at the Venice Biennale . In Óbuda , a district of Budapest, his “Imre-Varga-Museum” shows the artist's life's work in a pretty Alt-Ofener house with a garden in a permanent exhibition, with publicly exhibited sculptures being shown in copies and scaled down.

Honors

In 1973 he won the " Kossuth Prize ," in 1982 he received the " Herder Prize " of the Alfred Toepfer Foundation , in 1985 he Siofok awarded the honorary citizenship as the first honorary citizen of his native city and in 2002 it the Federal Republic of Germany awarded the Federal Cross of Merit 1st Class .

literature

Web links

Commons : Imre Varga  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Hungarian sculptor Imre Varga died at the age of 96. In: ORF.at . December 10, 2019, accessed December 10, 2019 .
  2. ↑ Tobias Büscher, "The Cemetery of Sculptures", in: Heiko Zeutschner, Hungary [travel guide] Erlangen: M. Müller 2004, ISBN 3-89953-168-X , p. 215
  3. ↑ Archived copy ( Memento of the original dated November 7, 2007 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.neue-zeitung.hu
personal data
SURNAME Varga, Imre
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Hungarian sculptor, painter, graphic artist and designer
DATE OF BIRTH November 1, 1923
PLACE OF BIRTH Siófok
DATE OF DEATH December 9, 2019