Magda Szabo (born July 8, 1934) is a Canadian

miniaturist A portrait miniature is a miniature portrait painting, usually executed in gouache, watercolor, or enamel. Portrait miniatures developed out of the techniques of the miniatures in illuminated manuscripts, and were popular among 16th-century eli ...

Early life

Magda Szabo was born in

Budapest Budapest (, ; ) is the capital and most populous city of Hungary. It is the ninth-largest city in the European Union by population within city limits and the second-largest city on the Danube river; the city has an estimated population ...

Hungary Hungary ( hu, Magyarország ) is a landlocked country in Central Europe. Spanning of the Carpathian Basin, it is bordered by Slovakia to the north, Ukraine to the northeast, Romania to the east and southeast, Serbia to the south, Croatia a ...

. She started painting early, using oil as her medium, on large canvas.

Career

Her miniature painting career started in the late eighties. She selected

watercolor Watercolor (American English) or watercolour (British English; see spelling differences), also ''aquarelle'' (; from Italian diminutive of Latin ''aqua'' "water"), is a painting method”Watercolor may be as old as art itself, going back to t ...

for this genre for technical reasons. Much of her work from that period consisted of creations, which were hardly bigger than a large

postage stamp A postage stamp is a small piece of paper issued by a post office, postal administration, or other authorized vendors to customers who pay postage (the cost involved in moving, insuring, or registering mail), who then affix the stamp to the fa ...

. To paint such tiny pictures, she used a magnifying glass and a brush, which consisted of three hairs. Today her works are larger, around 5" by 3.5" or smaller in size, but still classifiable as miniatures. Magda Szabo uses a special

varnish Varnish is a clear transparent hard protective coating or film. It is not a stain. It usually has a yellowish shade from the manufacturing process and materials used, but it may also be pigmented as desired, and is sold commercially in various ...

to coat the surfaces of her paintings. This varnish protects the colors from fading and provides a unique illumination effect. She has been a member of a number of Miniature Art Societies, such as the Hilliard Society of Miniaturists, The Miniature Art Society of Florida US and Canadian Society of Painters, Sculptors and Gravers in Ottawa, Canada. She has permanent exhibitions in a number of galleries in Maui, Hawaii. Her miniatures have been sold in countries, such as England, US, Canada and others. Her output comprises over one thousand miniatures of many different themes.

Awards

Magda Szabo received several prizes in international and national juried competitions for her work, amongst others: *First prize: 1997, Seaside Art Gallery, Nags Head, North Carolina (international) *Second prize: 2000, Florida Miniature Art Society, (international) *Four Awards of Excellence: Chambersburg, Pennsylvania, (international)

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Szabo, Magda 1934 births Living people Canadian women painters 21st-century Canadian women artists