10 Treurenberg, 1000 Brussels
“He seeks his own forms in the eternal, slow, continuous movement of creation - existence - dissolution, he does not construct new forms, but recognizes his own form in a timelessly existing shape, extracts it and transforms it into a sculpture. When he works with bronze, he repeats on a small scale the process of creation - existence - disintegration - rebirth, the operation of known laws and of laws not yet known, of coincidences.
I don't know what, when and how he recognises the phenomena that urge him to create, and he probably doesn't know either; it's a secret, and it's likely to remain a secret, but one thing is certain: there is no art without this secret.”
Judit Aba-Novák, art historian
“It has always been a mystery to me, why does someone make sculptures, paintings, drawings? What is the primordial power that urges them to force their feelings and moods, which cannot be expressed in words, into a work of art? What is the unknown stimulant that always motivates him to create an artwork? What is the mysterious way that preserves the feeling, the atmosphere condensed in the work of art, that transplants it to the viewer and thus the work radiates the intention of its creator over time, like an eternal battery - it always has a charge, a tension.”
Mihály Mészáros, sculptor
“One of the great fortunes of my life was to be his son.
I was very angry with him at times as a teenager, why can't I play football with the others, why do I have to help out here, kneading clay, casting bronze, cleaning the workshop? Why is my father a sculptor? And of course I was very proud when I was asked what your dad’s profession is? A sculptor! Not everyone could say that. And can you make sculptures too? Of course, I was bragging - and I gave them a rough idea of the technical processes. I just don't know the essence: to shape the material until it becomes a sculpture. That's where the secret is, that's where the work, the art, is born.”
Miklós Mészáros (son)
Mihály Mészáros, Hungarian sculptor, was born on 21 January 1930 in Rákospalota and passed away on 31 July 2008 in Budapest.
He was a student at the Hungarian University of Fine Arts from 1949 to 1954, studying under Pál Pátzay, Sándor Mikus, and Zsigmond Kisfaludy-Stróbl. He was a versatile artist, known for using a wide range of materials, such as clay-terracotta, wax, bronze, lead, enamel, concrete, stone, wood, copper plate…. His work was recognized throughout Europe with numerous awards, including the 4th National Statuette Biennale Prize in Pécs (1974), the Dante Award of Ravenna (1975), the Munkácsy Prize (1976), and the Ludwig Award of the Professional Association of Austrian Fine Artists [Berufsvereinigung der bildenden Künstler Österreichs] (1985). For decades, he served as the foreign relations officer of the Hungarian Association of Fine Arts. He won several European scholarships, including ones in Vienna (1966), Brussels (1969), and London (1963 and 1970), and was elected a full member of the Vienna Künstlerhaus. During the 1960s and 70s, socialist realism was the dominant and mandatory artistic direction in Hungary. The exposure to European scholarships greatly influenced his art and vision, leading him to develop a broader and more colourful artistic palette. In a literal sense, he found a new way to mould his sculptures into shape: an ancient precision metal-casting technique – long forgotten in Hungary – which he learned during his first trip to England, the lost-wax bronze casting, also known as “cire perdue”. He built a furnace in his Budapest studio and casted his own statuettes. This is still not common among sculptors, and was completely unique in Hungary during the 1960s and 70s. He was a true European artist and personality, speaking four languages, fascinated by Europe's cultural wealth and diversity. His art was greatly influenced by mythology, religion, and the respect for common European values and traditions appeared in it. He often depicted figures such as Orpheus and Eurydice, Icarus, Daedalus, Moses, and characters from Dante's Divine Comedy, as well as figures such as Jesus and Saint Sebastian. His sculptures are the testimonies of his humanist philosophy, respect for people, and love for humanity.
More information abouth the artist and his works: meszarosmihaly.hu
CURRICILUM VITAE - Mihály Mészáros
(Interioris)
I have often written down my date of birth: 21 January 1930, in all kinds of necessary biographies, so that it appears truly immovable and unchangeable to me. Like my sculptures and statuettes. They don't change, but they define me. And with this, I would like to emphasize also the thousands of years old method of sculpting that I practice. My works are not mobile, not concepts, not performances, not fleeting or disappearing, and they cannot be changed. They remain on my neck with full responsibility, due to happiness or shame, but with the ever-present compulsion to take responsibility and to keep presenting the lessons learned.
Placing me on the tracks at college, as a defining foundational impetus, also directed me towards this stable path. With this, I almost declare in which era I completed my studies: indeed, in that much-mentioned socialist-realist times, which has since been condemned so many times, including by ourselves, who were active participants of that era. Now – 30 years later – that the intellectual fashions that were already raging in Europe, and appeared only later in Hungary – but with the same extreme force (yielding little results) – have subsided, looking back I cannot find so much to condemn in the former training methods that we received. We – as far as we were able – were taught to scale, and the basic intellectual and technical skills of the craft, provided practice and a good foundation for getting started. The current so-called modern methods are not achieving greater efficiency in the preparation for the profession. But perhaps – and I can appreciate this as an advantage – instead of the currently so fashionable and all-consuming pursuit of finding and expressing personality, art was defined for us as a collectively valid goal, which can be achieved through the nowadays completely forgotten artistic humility. This was the bag for the journey we were given, and looking back I can safely say that all the members of my generation who have remained in the profession carry their own personality and style, with which they are well acquainted. Each according to their own weight and abilities, of course, but maturely. Not without the need for self-renewal: but free from the stress of the rush for fashion.
So I consider myself – almost with a certain self-indulgence – a conservative sculptor. I feel comfortable in that, and I feel my development to be secure. I even take the risk of phrasing platitudes. There are times when nothing more can or should be said.
My programme is the continuous development of traditions, I am almost a tool for this. Even under their wings, I looked at the work of my masters Mikus, Stróbl, Pátzay with a certain criticism, just as my former students look at my work, but I still embrace learning from them. Based on this, my development has been relatively harmonious, with more or less shaking.
The changes happened in me in the usual way: dissatisfaction with the present, boredom, looking around, absorption, and the application of a new solution that was offered almost unnoticed, and was not very conscious at first. Now I watch the process cunningly, without interfering, but following closely, calculating here and there the next step with the pleasure of slow discovery, so that I am both the object and the subject of observing myself. I want to continue to observe on this way my changes, which happily surprise even me, and to create and enjoy my work in relation to them. Because I enjoy my craft very much, with all its worries, troubles, gnawing, cursing, dust, dirt, gas, smoke, health-consuming conditions, everything. Perhaps some kind of art can grow out of it one day, and I would like to pass it on directly, without an intermediary, to anyone who is on the same wavelength: perhaps they will find pleasure in it.