Angela Varga (1925–)

140.0000

Angela Varga (1925–)

person

Jane Eckett

1925

Vienna, Austria

sculptor, painter, mural artist

In early 1950 Varga, whose sister Kate was then working in England as a nurse (and would later marry Abbey sculptor Peter King) joined Helen Grunwald at the Abbey for a few months. In March that year, Sir Kenneth Clark’s secretary gave Grunwald and Varga a private tour of his collection, Clark being away at the time. Grunwald afterwards invited Clark to the Abbey, specifically to view Varga’s work, describing Varga as an artist who ‘only narrowly escaped being transported by the Nazis during the war’. Varga was due to return to Vienna in June, and Grunwald hoped Clark might write a reference for her to support her return to England to study at ‘one of the London Schools of Art, or possibly, the Slade’ (Grunwald to Clark, 24 May 1949, TGA 8812/1/2/2696). Clark accepted Grunwald’s invitation, writing in advance to Ohly that ‘Miss Grunwald is very anxious for me to see the work of a girl named Angela Varga, who is a student at the Abbey’ and proposing a mutually convenient date (Clark to Ohly, 18 May 1950, TGA 8812/1/2/4850). The visit eventuated in the late afternoon of 26 May 1950. Clark soon afterwards provided the much-needed reference for ‘Miss Weiss-Varga’, commenting to Grunwald that ‘it must be lovely for you to find someone with a talent so akin to your own, because, although there are naturally differences in your work, the vision and sympathies are very much the same’ (Clark to Grunwald, 30 May 1950, TGA 8812/1/2/2698). A week later, Varga was accepted at the Slade (Grunwald to Clark, 7 June 1949, TGA 8812/1/2/2699) and by mid-October had returned to the Abbey to embark on her studies at the Slade.

Angela Varga with a young thrush she rescued from a cat, at the Abbey Art Centre, c. 1950–53, courtesy the artist

12 August 2021

31 May 2022