The E-Sylum:  Volume 7, Number 44, October 31, 2004, Article 22

ANDOR AND MICHAEL MESAZOROS, MEDALLISTS

  An Australian publication "The Age"  recently published a
  very lengthy and interesting article about Andor Meszaros
  and his son Michael, medallists of Melbourne, Australia.
  The following are a few excerpts.  Those interested in
  learning more are encouraged to follow the link and read
  the article in its entirety.

  "Monuments stand on the streets and shout to all, while medals
  whisper to individuals. The two are flip sides of the same
  philosophical coin. But on the Meszaros medallions, which
  appear in the British Museum and national galleries here,
  experts are unanimously kind."

  "Australian medallion art would be a very different scene
  without Michael and Andor, says John Sharples, curator
  emeritus of Museum Victoria. Andor's medals are
  "astonishingly good", says another curator, and if you are
  talking about Michael being in the same league as his father
  "stick to the medals".

  MICHAEL'S studio is a cave-like room enveloped by shadow
  and grey dust. When I visited, Michael's niece, Daniel's
  daughter Anna, was waiting upstairs. She is tentatively carving
  out a career of her own, and a few years ago landed a $90,000
  commission from a coalition of churches in Melbourne's CBD
  for 14 bronze sculptures depicting the Stations of the Cross.
  Hanging over her, a constant thorn in her side, was Andor's
  masterstroke; the Canterbury Stations of the Cross medallion
  series, completed only days before his death.

  Michael displays some of his medals. Manhattan, an aerial
  view of the city's skyscrapers has jagged edges, creating a
  vertiginous effect of gazing down through chasms. The Escape,
  an idea conceived during the Prague spring of 1968, shows a
  person at the coin's bottom flattened under looped barbed
  wire.

  Some medals are self-referential in-jokes. The Gospel
  According to the Medal is a book/medal where even the
  pages are circular."

  "It began when 38-year-old Andor Meszaros disembarked at
  Port Melbourne's Station Pier in June 1939, leaving behind
  fascist Hungary and ominous Europe. He knew little about
  Australia (other than hearing a few anecdotes from a
  Hungarian anthropologist who had visited briefly to "study the
  Aborigines"), but it was the only option on offer at the British
  embassy in Budapest. His wife, Elizabeth, and their son
  Daniel, Michael's elder brother, were soon to join."

  "Andor knocked on the doors of notables and offered to do
  portrait medallions on a "no obligation" basis. The portrait
  medallion belonged more to Paris or Vienna than to
  Melbourne, but Andor understood the power of flattery. The
  people liked what they saw, spread the word and slowly the
  commissions trickled in. At Glamorgan primary school in
  Toorak, where Daniel studied, his portrait medallions of
  teachers were accepted in lieu of fees when money was short."

  The work has rolled in since Andor's death more than 30
  years ago when, swallowing hard, Michael rang clients with
  outstanding commissions and offered to finish them. Among
  his current jobs is a large sculpture for a major Melbourne
  institution.

  Michael is a solid 59-year-old man with glasses and a
  Groucho Marx moustache similar to Andor's in his later
  years. Bald on top, with wiry frizz flying out to the sides, the
  look is more mad scientist than bohemian artist."

  Complete Article

  Wayne Homren, Editor

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