The Eighth Tribe, 1980 (7. évfolyam, 1-12. szám)
1980-02-01 / 2. szám
February, 1980 THE EIGHTH TRIBE Page 5 Persons in the News . . . Endre Tamaska Endre v. ns. Tamáska de Baranch, Academician, Artist painter-sculptor, heraldist and genealogist, was born in Nyíregyháza, Hungary, on May 30, 1913. Son of Endre Gyula and Mária (Hegedűs de Petrahó) Tamáska. Five years as a prisoner of war in Siberia and three years as a political prisoner in Hungary failed to daunt the spirit of artist Endre Tamaska. During the Hungarian uprising of 1956, he organized troops against the Russians but the battles in Budapest, 180 miles away, convinced Tamaska that he would have to flee to find his freedom. “The Russians had killed 35,000 young people on the streets of Budapest and sent more than 100,000 to Siberia,” he recalled. “If the KGB had captured me, 1 knew I’d never be free again. Tamaska escaped at night across the Austrian border and in a few weeks joined his brother, already an American citizen, in Pennsylvania. “I very much appreciate my freedom here. I was lucky 1 could start a new life,” said Tamaska, who moved to Sarasota, Fla. last December. His new life when he moved to the United States was a career as an artist and sculptor. In Hungary, art had been liis hobby. He had earned a fine arts degree but had gone on to study law at Tisza University and then graduated from the Royal Hungarian military academy and mounted police officer’s school. Answering an ad in the Pittsburgh paper, Tamaska began a 15-year rareer as sculptor with Matthews and Co. He created the life size bas relief portrait of Roberto Clemente, now in the Baseball Hall of Fame. His 300-pound clay head of President Harry Truman turned into a two-ton bronze that was unveiled at the dedication of a power dam in Missouri. For the 25th anniversary of Queen Elizabeth’s reign, he painted a portrait. A relief of Arnold Palmer by Tamaska was cast and put in a place of honor in a Pittsburgh golf club and in Palmer’s birthplace at Latrobe, Pa. Tamaska immortalized police and firemen who have died in action in an eight-foot memorial plaque of clay cast into bronze. He created a series of historical themes n relief including Washington and Lafayette for Bicentennial plates as well as the Cowper Madonna for a Mother’s Day series of relief plates. Tamaska has done more than 300 paintings. Landscapes and portraits are included among the watercolor8, oils and pastels. In Pittsburgh, Tamaska taught at a private academy. Although retired, he does an occasional project
