Földes Mária: „... a szelídség szobra” - Válogatás Ferenczy Béni szobrászművész hagyatékából (A Magyar Nemzeti Galéria kiadványai 2005/2)

sion. They all became artists. The eldest child, Valér, followed in the footsteps of the father, and became a painter, though he is mostly remembered for his outstanding writings on art and his prints. Of the twins, Noémi secured a name in the history of Hungarian art as a renewer of tapestry, and Béni became a sculptor. The œuvre he created had seminal significance in both Hungarian sculpture and medallurgy in the 20

,h century, and is acclaimed by Hungarian art history as one that raised and solved genuine issues of plastics, undertook classic traditions but was modern in outlook, and held up universal values. The young man went on to develop the culture, command of languages, literary and musical knowledgeability, and, naturally, his talent in the important centres of art. He studied sculpture in Florence and then in Munich, where he acquired the skills of wood carving, too. He went on to Paris to seek his own forms of expression at the studios of Bourdelle and Archipenko, where he also encountered avant-garde aspirations. In the beginning of his career, he followed the classicism of Hildebrand, but later, during his Vienna and Berlin years, he came under the influence of the new spatial formation of cubism. From 1921, he lived in Vienna, and married, founded a family. The ten Vienna years were interrupted by a year in Berlin and almost four in Moscow. In Vienna, he was commissioned to make public sculptures, the tomb of Egon Schiele (1928) among them. In Berlin, he exhibited together with Aurél Bernáth at the Der Sturm Gallery in 1924. His very individual, mature style evolved by the mid-1950s. The time spent in Moscow occasioned him to sum up and rethink the experiences he had gained and the world view he had shaped previously, and to transform them into a profoundly human, intimate art formulating genuinely sculptural ideas. He held on to the lyrical style he found throughout his life in spite of all the personal and professional trials he had to endure. His rich œuvre includes not only statues, graphics and medals. With a curiosity that made him always ready for renewal, he turned to other materials, produced various objets d'art, carved and painted chests, designed chess sets, shaped vases and plates from clay, or painted on silk. Száguldó lovon ülő nőalak angyallal, 1960-as évek első fele (67)