Margit Varga

{{Infobox person

| name = Margit Varga

| other_names =

| birth_name = Margaret Varga

| birth_date = {{Birth date|1908|05|05}}

| birth_place = New York City, New York, U.S.

| death_date = {{Death date and age|2005|04|08|1908|05|05}}

| death_place = Naples, Collier County, Florida, U.S.

| education = National Academy of Design,
Art Students League of New York

| occupation = Artist, gallerist, art editor, art director, journalist

| spouse = Laszlo Kormendi

}}

Margit Varga (1908–2005) was an American artist, gallerist, journalist, art director, and art editor.{{Cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=je8wAQAAIAAJ |title=Journal of the Archives of American Art |date=1988 |publisher=Archives of American Art |volume=28 |language=en}}{{Cite book |url=http://www.oxfordartonline.com/benezit/view/10.1093/benz/9780199773787.001.0001/acref-9780199773787-e-00188584 |title=Varga, Margit |date=2011-10-31 |publisher=Oxford University Press |volume=1 |language=en |doi=10.1093/benz/9780199773787.article.b00188584|isbn=978-0-19-977378-7 }} Her artwork has been described as "magical realism" and her work was known in the New York City-area and in Europe.{{Cite news |date=2005-04-12 |title=Death Notices: Margit Varga, Naples, FL |pages=18 |work=The Naples Daily News |url=https://www.newspapers.com/clip/106634071/death-notices-margit-varga-naples-fl/ |access-date=2022-07-30}} Varga owned a Midtown art gallery for emerging artists in the 1930s. She was an art authority and served as a judge for art exhibitions in the 1930s and 1940s.{{Cite news |date=1940-08-06 |title=Art Authority on Survey Visit, Margit Varga Tells Impression Made by Coast Painters in East |pages=20 |work=The Los Angeles Times |url=https://www.newspapers.com/clip/106637777/art-authority-on-survey-visit-margit/ |access-date=2022-07-31}} Varga worked for Time magazine for 40 years.

Biography

Margit Varga was born on May 5, 1908, on the Upper East Side of Manhattan in New York City, to parents from Hungary.{{Cite journal |date=1939 |title=VARGA, Margaret (Margit) |journal=American Women |volume=3}} She studied art at the National Academy of Design; and at the Art Students League of New York, under Boardman Johnson and Robert Laurent.{{Cite journal |last1=Kirwin |first1=Liza |last2=McNaught |first2=William |last3=Brown |first3=Robert F. |last4=Karlstrom |first4=Paul J. |last5=Pacini |first5=Marina |date=1988 |title=Regional Reports |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/1557619 |journal=Archives of American Art Journal |volume=28 |issue=4 |pages=34–40 |doi=10.1086/aaa.28.4.1557619 |issn=0003-9853 |jstor=1557619 |s2cid=222434640}}{{Cite web |title=Margit Varga papers |url=https://sova.si.edu/record/AAA.vargmarg?s=120&n=10&t=C&q=Sketchbooks&i=128 |access-date=2022-07-30 |website=Smithsonian Online Virtual Archives (SOVA), Archives of American Art}}

Varga established the Painters' and Sculptors' Gallery at 22 East 11th Street in Manhattan in 1932.{{Cite news |date=1932-01-06 |title=Hungarian-American Art Seen. |language=en-US |work=The New York Times |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1932/01/06/archives/hungarianamerican-art-seen.html |access-date=2022-07-30 |issn=0362-4331}}{{Cite news |date=1932-01-14 |title=Artist Helps Others Arrive, Margit Varga Opens Gallery to Show Work of Little Known Artists |pages=15 |work=Arizona Daily Star |url=https://www.newspapers.com/clip/106636758/artist-helps-others-arrive-margit/ |access-date=2022-07-31}} The gallery showed emerging artists for the next 3 years. Varga worked for 40 years as an art editor and art director of Time magazine, starting in 1936.{{Cite book |last1=Grant |first1=Florence |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=NkIBEAAAQBAJ |title=Writing Visual Histories |last2=Jordanova |first2=Ludmilla |date=2020-11-12 |publisher=Bloomsbury Publishing |isbn=978-1-350-02346-8 |page=135 |language=en}} Varga lived in a townhouse at 739 Washington Street in the West Village until 1995, when she sold the building to Dorothy Lichtenstein.{{Cite web |last=Quinlan |first=Adriane |date=2024-11-25 |title=The Lichtenstein Family Is Selling a Townhouse |url=https://www.curbed.com/article/lichtenstein-foundation-house-739-washington-west-village-photos.html |access-date=2025-04-23 |website=Curbed |language=en}}

Varga died on April 8, 2005, in Naples, Florida. Her artwork can be found in museum collections including the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts,{{Cite web |date=2014-12-28 |title=Margit Varga, "Going Fishing " (1944) |url=https://www.pafa.org/museum/collection/item/going-fishing |access-date=2022-07-30 |website=PAFA - Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts |language=en-US}} the Metropolitan Museum of Art,{{Cite web |title=Main Street, Brewster, 1941 |url=https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/488231 |website=The Metropolitan Museum of Art}} and Gilcrease Museum.{{Cite web |title=Waldo Peirce / by Margit Varga |url=https://collections.gilcrease.org/object/nd237p34-v3 |access-date=2022-07-30 |website=Gilcrease Museum |language=en}}

References

External links

[https://www.aaa.si.edu/collections/margit-varga-papers-9042 Margit Varga papers, 1931-1985] from Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution

Category:1908 births

Category:2005 deaths

Category:American art directors

Category:People from the Upper East Side

Category:Art Students League of New York alumni

Category:National Academy of Design alumni

Category:American people of Hungarian descent

Category:Artists from New York City

Category:20th-century American women painters

Category:20th-century American painters