Imre Varga (1924-2019) | Selection out of the legends studio

Imre Varga, the Kossuth Prize-winning Hungarian sculptor awarded the title of the nation's artist, is one of the best-known public sculptors in Hungary. He graduated from the Budapest College of Fine Arts in 1956 as a student of Pál Pátzay and Sándor Mikus. His work has featured in a number of prestigious events across Europe. During his rich artistic career, he was an active artist in all branches of sculpture, but for a short time he also worked on making graphics and paintings. Although most of his work is made up of imposingly large public sculptures, he has also made small sculptures, paintings, drawings, tombstones, portrait monuments and medals. He also emphasized human and ordinary features in his classicist and modern sculptures. He also used several materials and ways of working in his mainly figurative works: he worked with bronze, chrome steel, aluminum and marble.

In our chamber exhibition, we present selected pieces of the artist's unique works from the studio: rarely seen drawings of biblical scenes, but also accompanied by the hero of Greek mythology, Odysseus, or the infamous sorceress of the Greek world, Kirkke. We cite his significant public sculpture with the small sculpture made of bronze and marble by one of his best-known works, the Raoul Wallenberg monument in the second district, and the statue of the famous Miklós Radnóti. In addition to graphics and small sculptures with a religious and mythological theme, we exhibit the only selfportrait Imre Varga did with the statue of St. Stephen, which can be seen also today in the Chapel of the Hungarians in the Vatican.