"The fact that Varo prefers to depict this draped rather than nude is perhaps a symbol of his reverence for the mysteries this image contains." - Edward Lucie-Smith
Born March 15, 1943 in Szekelyudvarhely, Transylvania, Hungary (now Romania), Marton Varo studied sculpture at Ion Andreescu Institute of Arts in Cluj, Romania from 1960 to 1966. In 1970, he moved to Debrecen, Hungary, where he completed several sculptures for public places and was awarded the Munkacsy Prize in 1984.
Receiving a Fulbright scholarship in 1988, Varo became affiliated with the University of California, Irvine, studying the relationship between architecture and sculpture. In 1990, he became the Artist in Residence for a public art project in the City of Brea, California.
Varo lives and works in the USA, in California and Florida, spending summers working in Carrara, Italy.
ART CRITICISM
These echoes and cross-references make Varo a typically post-modern artist. Post-Modernism has been defined as the propensity to recombine elements from existing artistic languages in new ways, rather than striving to invent languages which are completely new. What he lacks, fortunately, is the cynicism which informs so much Post-Modernist art. All his work shows his eye for finely calculated formal relationships. But always, even in the works which are apparently entirely non-figurative, there is a feeling for flesh — in particular for the ripeness of the female body. The fact that Varo prefers to depict this draped rather than nude is perhaps a symbol of his reverence for the mysteries this image contains.
– Edward Lucie-Smith