András Beck
Encyclopedia
Hungary
Hungary , officially the Republic of Hungary , is a landlocked country in Central Europe. It is situated in the Carpathian Basin and is bordered by Slovakia to the north, Ukraine and Romania to the east, Serbia and Croatia to the south, Slovenia to the southwest and Austria to the west. The...
sculptor. He was noted for his
symbolic and expressionist bronze
Bronze
Bronze is a metal alloy consisting primarily of copper, usually with tin as the main additive. It is hard and brittle, and it was particularly significant in antiquity, so much so that the Bronze Age was named after the metal...
statuettes and portrait busts.
Beck was born in Alsógöd
Göd
- Industry :Göd is famous for its thriving tourism. It has a thermal spa open almost 365 days a year with its water already declared as rich in minerals...
in 1911. His father an artist Ödön Fülöp Beck trained him from a young age and he later became a pupil of Zsigmond Kisfaludi Strobl
Zsigmond Kisfaludi Strobl
Zsigmond Kisfaludi Strobl was a Hungarian sculptor and artist. His sculptural style integrated elements of realism and academism style mainly engaged in creating portrait busts.-Early life:...
at the Hungarian Art School for three years where he his talent began to flourish. He left on a study trip to Berlin
Berlin
Berlin is the capital city of Germany and is one of the 16 states of Germany. With a population of 3.45 million people, Berlin is Germany's largest city. It is the second most populous city proper and the seventh most populous urban area in the European Union...
and then London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
where his early works were exhibited. In 1947 Beck was appointed the President of the Trade Union of Hungarian Artists, subsequently leaving for Paris
Paris
Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...
where in 1948 he was became teacher of the Art School.
From the 1930s he became well known for his expressionist sculpture, creating plaquettes of Árpád Tóth
Árpád Tóth
Árpád Tóth was a Hungarian poet and translator.Tóth went to Gymnasium in Debrecen and then studied German and Hungarian at the University of Budapest. In 1907, he poems began to appear in the papers A Hét and Vasárnapi Újság and after 1908 in Nyugat...
, Bartók
Béla Bartók
Béla Viktor János Bartók was a Hungarian composer and pianist. He is considered one of the most important composers of the 20th century and is regarded, along with Liszt, as Hungary's greatest composer...
, Móricz
Zsigmond Móricz
Zsigmond Móricz was a major Hungarian novelist and Social Realist. He was among the earliest significant literary figures writing in Hungarian.- Early life and education :...
, and Thomas Mann
Thomas Mann
Thomas Mann was a German novelist, short story writer, social critic, philanthropist, essayist, and 1929 Nobel Prize laureate, known for his series of highly symbolic and ironic epic novels and novellas, noted for their insight into the psychology of the artist and the intellectual...
. Between 1945 and 1955 he was hired to sculpt figures for display in various towns and cities. Settling permanently in Paris
Paris
Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...
in 1956, in 1963 his lyrical works were exhibited at the Galerie Lambert.
In the late 1960s he created Refugees (1967) and Dance (1969) and his famous Masque de Saint-John Perse bronze mask of writer Saint-John Perse
Saint-John Perse
Saint-John Perse was a French poet, awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1960 "for the soaring flight and evocative imagery of his poetry." He was also a major French diplomat from 1914 to 1940, after which he lived primarily in the USA until 1967.-Biography:Alexis Leger was...
.
By the late 1970s he was employed at the Mint in Paris where a number of his works were exhibited but retired from active sculpture creation in 1980.
He died in Paris
Paris
Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...
in 1985 in a car accident.
His 3.5m tall statue commemorating the death of Jan Palach was transported from France to the Czech Republic to be installed in Mělník, the city of studies of Jan Palach, on the occasion of 40th anniversary of his death.