Happy New Year!

With Season's Best Greetings we wish our Readers good health, happiness and success for 2015!

Nandor Wagner: Miyamoto Musashi

Miyamoto Musashi (宮本 武蔵, 1584 –1645) was outstanding Japanese ambidextrous swordsman.  He refined the two-sword technique. As rōnin he excelled in swordsmanship and was winner in numerous duels. He was the founder of the Niten-ryū style of swordsmanship after his Buddhist name, Niten Dōraku.  After finishing fights in 1633 he started to paint and to write. Both calligraphies and classic ink paintings created by him are recognized masterpieces. His Book of Five Rings (五輪の書 Go Rin No Sho) on strategy, tactics, and philosophy has been studied even today. Nandor Wagner was found of his individual way and fights and he felt a resemblance with his own life. He studied Miyamoto Musashi's philosophy.

Remembering Imre Oppel Painter, the Math Teacher of E. P. Wigner Eponymous of Wigner Research Center for Physics

Academia Humana Foundation has been keeping an eye on art and science relations since long. Many of Hungarian scientists had outstanding talent in arts and music so for them it made their life happier and more complete. Also they liked to show their works or perform in front of their collegeues to establish a creative atmosphere and it was insprying, many of their ideas were born this way.

Recognizing the relation of symmetric behavior Rubik’s Cube’s corner cubies and quarks by Professor Solomon W. Golomb was also a dynamic visual moment. Nature has analogies quite a few connecting far away topics. Hungarian Jenő Pál Wigner (E.P. Wigner) is notable for having laid the foundation for the theory of symmetries in quantum mechanics as well as for his research into the structure of the atomic nucleus. His fellow student was János von Neumann at famous Fasori Evangélikus Gimnázium. Later they had collaborated on three scientific papers together in United States. Their teacher of mathematics surprisingly was Imre Oppel who was actually a painter and art teacher. Art and mathematics were his subjects to teach.

Imre Oppel painter and math teacher

(Imre Oppel's CV in Hungarian)

We would like to say welcome to the participants of the Xth Workshop on Particle Correlations and Femtoscopy in Göngyös. The organizer is  Wigner Research Center for Physics. The venue will start tomorrow. For more click below please:

Spring Exhibition in Mashiko

The Spring Exhibition will focus on two main topics remembering a soldier and Nandor's horse works respectively. First topic: Hiroo Onoda died aged 91 this January. He was the wartime Japanese officer who surrendered only in 1974, having hunkered down in the jungles of Guam island. His faithfulness, loyalty and steadfastness was recognized by our foundation and he was presented the "Freeing the Crane" sculpted by Nandor Wagner.

  The poster of  Spring Exhibition showing the statue Freeing the Crane

Second topic: the art pieces which will be exhibited are selected from Nandor Wagner's horse related works. This year is the Year of the Horse - Uma Toshi - in Japan following the Asian Zodiac. The garden of the Wagner Nandor Art Gallery has been refurbished last autumn.

  Horses in the renewed garden

Pentagon Exhibition room will show the illustrations made by Ikuyo Nakada for the book of Yukio Narushima titled Konohana Sakuyamhime, which has been published in Hungary by Phyteas Book Manufactory last November.

 

Ikuyo Nakada the illustrator at the book presentation in Hungary.

Season's Greetings

With the snowy photo of Mother Earth in Budapest we would like to wish all our readers
Merry Christmas and Happy New Year! 

Autumn Exhibition in Mashiko

This autumn the Mashiko Wagner Nandor Exhibition will be held from 15th of October to 15th of November. The topic is to show the Hungarian period of the sculptor. More or less parallel the Szekesfehervar Exhibition is going on and photos from that exhibition will be displayed as well. 

Hungarian Heritage Prize goes to Nándor Wagner

We have received a letter, which reads as follows:
 
"It is my pleasure to inform you that our Appraising Committee of Hungarian Heritage and Europe Society based on initiatives made by civilians has decided to grant

HUNGARIAN HERITAGE PRIZE
to
WAGNER NÁNDOR
sculptor
The Presentation Ceremony will be held at the Grand Assembly Hall of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences on Saturday 21st of September, 2013.

Dr. Hámori József
President"



The moments of the Ceremony

 Ms. Chiyo Wagner, Mr. Mihály Pál sculptor and Ms. Réka Gabriella Kiss interpreter.

 Just a little chat with Mr. Sándor Kiss before the opening ceremony.

 The ceiling of the Grand Assembly Hall

 Appreciation speech by Mr. Mihály Pál sculptor who knew and visited
Nándor Wagner and his atelier in the 1950-ies

 Appreciation speech was supported by slide show. (watch it here, in Hungarian)

 The Hungarian Heritage Prize was presented by Dr. Annamária Zelényi Vice President

 Round of applause.

 Certificate of Merit reads:
"For his Statuary Integrating Cultures
Nándor Wagner sculptor
was honoured by
Hungarian Heritage Prize"

For sake of Memory

 Moments of happiness.

 Congratulation!
Ms. Chiyo Wagner and Professor József Hámori

"Wagner statue-artifact" in Székesfehérvár

King Saint Stephan Museum cordially invites you and your family to the opening ceremony of

"Wagner statue-artifact" in Székesfehérvár

Place: Székesfehérvár, Fő utca 6., Rendház – Saloon
Time: 17:00 on Sunday 22nd of September, 2013

Program

• Greetings: H.E. Tadamichi YAMAMOTO Ambassador of Japan
• Opening address: Dr. András Cser-Palkovics Mayor of Székesfehérvár
• Opening Lecture: Mr. Tibor Wehner Art Historian
• Vocal music: Primavera Choir conducting Ms. Otttilia Horányi

The exhibition will remain open: from 10 am – 6pm from 22nd of September to 27th of October, 2013. Closed on every Monday and Tuesday.

Supporters: Academia Humana Foundation (Budapest) and Wagner Nándor Foundation (Mashiko, Japan)

Background

After the war Wagner found employment at the Hungarian Natural History Museum as a forensic artist and taxidermist. During this work he demonstrated both proficiency and an authentic touch in setting the objects in natural positions. The newly organized National Committee for Museums and Monuments selected him as sculptor/designer, and he was later promoted to the post of exhibitions director in 1948. Under his guidance and with his participation, museums were refurbished after war damage and exhibitions were organized and opened in the cities of Hódmezővásárhely, Keszthely and Székesfehérvár. The latter exhibition, the “Permanent Exhibition of History, Natural Sciences and Ethnography of Fejér County,” was his own original creation. Here he broke from the traditional method of displaying items, instead applying a revolutionary visual approach by displaying objects in a reconstructed environment. His goal and work was supported by a team of internationally renowned specialists carefully selected for this project. However, his endeavour to produce a new kind of exhibition was not appreciated by his superiors at the National Committee and he was sacked from his position on the very opening day, 31 December 1950. He would never arrange another museum exhibition. However, in both content and method of display, the exhibition was outstanding, praised by even some of his angry bosses and by foreign museums including the British Museum. The visitor counter at the end of the first year reached 70,174. It would stay open for 11 years.

Nándor Wagner became an independent sculptor for the rest of his life. Nevertheless, he maintained good relations with his former colleagues in museums. He produced several outstanding statues in his Budapest atelier at the Ybl Bazaar, among them “Corpus Hungaricum,” which was unveiled in Székesfehérvár only in 1999. He also gave art courses to talented students who were refused entry to universities before the 1956 Revolution. He was elected as a board member of the Revolutionary Committee of Artists during the uprising, and worded his adherence to it thus: “We have only one oath: to protect Hungarian culture with all our strength, without any condition!” He called upon art students to take up drawing tools, not guns, in order to record the moments of revolution on the streets for the future. After the suppression of the Hungarian Revolution by the Soviet army, he was compelled to leave Hungary.

Luckily, half-finished and finished works from Wagner’s atelier were saved by his museum friends and deposited in a storeroom of the King Saint Stephen Museum in Székesfehérvár, which unfortunately later suffered severe flooding. For a long period it was believed that his saved art works had been lost, but in 2011 almost 50 items were found.

This year Székesfehérvár commemorates Saint Stephen, the first Hungarian king. On this occasion the chamber exhibition at King Saint Stephen Museum has been organized to display a bit of history as it relates to Nándor Wagner. Two of his achievements will be presented for the general public after sixty years; namely, his 1950 permanent exhibition and his saved art works.