NORWAY — Western Maine Art Group’s October exhibit is pulling from its 1962 roots, featuring the works of its founder, the late Lajos Matolcsy.
The exhibit will feature some well-known and never-before-seen work and archives from private collections. It opens Oct. 3 with a reception from 5-7 p.m. at the Lajos Matolcsy Arts Center at 480 Main Street in Norway. The gallery will be open to the public on Fridays and Saturdays from 12-3 p.m. throughout October.
Complimentary copies of a biography of the Hungarian’s life and career from the World War era in Eastern Europe to his eventual immigration to the United States will be available to visitors.
It is the first time in 19 years that Matolcsy’s art will be shown in Norway. In 2006 he was chosen as the focus figure of the Norway Arts Festival when a lecture on his life was held at the Norway Memorial Library and his works were displayed there.
Exhibit coordinator, board member and artist Peter Herley said the idea for the retrospective exhibit came after a gallery visitor last year asked who the professor was.
“I thought a show of Lajos’ work would be the right thing to do so the public at large would know more about his being a great teacher, artist and advocate … and his story,” said Herley.
Matolcsy also founded the summertime Norway Sidewalk Art Show in 1967 (now the Norway Maine Arts Festival) with the help of his wife, dance teacher Claire Couri, and some dedicated students. He went on to open teaching studios in Norway, Casco, Lewiston and Portland.
“Decades after his death I still run into people who make the connection with our unusual name and will tell me how dear he was to them or their parents,” says Matolcsy’s daughter Aranka, a multi-media artist. “One woman told me he and WMAG saved her mother’s life after the death of her husband. I have had more than one person tell me that he taught them to really ‘see’ for the first time.”
October’s exhibit will be filled with examples of his work in pen & ink, oil, watercolor, colored pencil, block prints, including graphic designs, sketches, carvings, weavings and more.
According to Aranka, art was the “salvation that carried his spirit through a remarkably traumatic and challenging life. It was his love of teaching and insatiable passion for creating that drew hundreds of students to him like moths to a flame.”
Sixty-three years after founding Western Maine Art Group, Matolcsy’s legacy in western Maine continues, with the nonprofit organization providing opportunities for artists to present their works and for the community to access original art.
“When we pass on the only thing you will miss is our being. Our spirits will still be here” said son Zoltan Matolcsy of South Paris. “His spirit is still here, very much, in the paintings, and in the books I read, and in the mountains I look at, and it’s definitely in my son’s face. It is still here.”
To learn more about Matolcsy, including his biography, please visit: lajosmatolcsy.wixsite.com/lajosmatolcsy. To learn more about WMAG, go to westernmaineartgroup.org.
