BECK Ö., Fülöp
(1873, Pápa - 1945, Budapest)



Sculptor, a major figure of modern Hungarian sculpture, who also created medals. In 1888 he took up the goldsmith's craft at the School of Applied Arts in Budapest where he was a pupil until 1893. He spent a few months in Vienna, then travelled to Paris on a scholarship in 1894. He was the pupil of Ponscarme at the École des Beaux Arts in Paris in 1895. He was still in Paris when he entered a competition to create the medal of the Millennium Exhibition, which he won. He had an exhibition in the Glaspalast in Munich in 1897. Medals appeared as a genre of their own at his 1898 exhibition in the Museum of Industrial Design for the first time. He was awarded with the silver medal at the World Exhibition in Paris in 1900. He travelled to Italy and Germany in the following years. He won the Grand Prix in Milan in 1906. At that time his interest was attracted to sculpture. From 1910 onwards he began creating statues in his workshop in Göd.

His robust and sketchy statues were first exhibited in the Ernst Museum in 1914. He completed "Aphrodite", one of his major works, in 1915. He also designed sculptural decoration (reliefs of the Corvin department store in Budapest, 1916), tombs in the 1930s (that of Fellner, 1932). He died during the siege of Budapest.

His works include "Animal Reliefs" (1911), "Saint Sebastian" (1914), "Tomb of György Király", "Tomb of Baumgarten" (1928), "Ferenc Liszt Memorial" (1935), "Fountain of Youth" (1938), "Kölcsey Memorial", and "Iron Founders" (1943). His major busts include those of "Zsigmond Móricz", "Mihály Babits" and "Zoltán Kodály". Of some 500 medals the best-known are his Sándor Petőfi, Ferenc Liszt, Endre Ady, Mihály Babits and Kelemen Mikes medals. His art represented post-impressionism but it was influenced by Art Nouveau.



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