Reflections on George Mayor-Marton’s Working Method and Approach
Gordon Millar - Art Historian and former student of Mayer-Marton
The design and completion of any public work of art calls for defined skills and abilities, it also calls for a close collaboration of artist and patron. Working methods in public art are far removed from the protective isolation of the artist’s studio. Factors of cost, deadlines, an understanding of materials and location and even more important artistic integrity and a constructive and shared vision and a sympathetic approach to subject matter are crucial.
Conceiving of a public work of art and particularly a religious one was something of a balancing act in the twentieth century when it involved responding to questions of symbolism and style that would both satisfy client’s expectations and demonstrate how traditional ideas might be expressed in a modern idiom.
George Mayer-Marton in his extensive work for the Catholic Church in the northwest during the 1950’s brought many necessary skills to bear. His understanding of the needs of the Church depended upon his firm understanding of Christian liturgy and iconography. This came from the fact that he was not only a well recognised painter who as secretary of the progressive Hagenbund in Vienna had participated directly in the development of European modernism but that he was also an enlightened art historian. As well as this, through his connection in Munich with the research of Max Doerner during the 1920’s into historic artistic methods and materials, he shared valuable practical knowledge that proved key in the success of his mural works.
He possessed the kind of personal skills that were important in negotiating with clients. Mayor Marton was a charming and persuasive man who easily gained respect. He liked people and communicated well and easily developed an accord with those he met and worked with. This meant he was a good negotiator who could encourage clients to understand and accept a modern style even in the most conservative of circumstances.
There was the added complexity of thinking of the mosaic as an integral part of the architecture and directly responsive to the qualities of its spatial context. It was not inherently easy to design murals in the contemporary context of modernism when it was felt important at the time that buildings be stripped of decoration as a matter of principle. Too often then what murals were designed, ended up more as additions conceived simply as added pictures.
During the second half of the 1950’s I was fortunate to act as an assistant to George Mayor Marton in work in Manchester and to a greater extent in the installation of the mosaic depicting the Pentecost in the church of the Holy Ghost at Netherton close to Liverpool. This mosaic now resides in the Liverpool Metropolitan Cathedral. The church in a typical simple, rather undistinguished ‘fifties’ style, was built simultaneous with the installation of the mosaic. This called for effective collaboration on a day to day basis and cooperation between client, architects, builders and the artist concerning the practical scheduling of the build and the creation of the mural. This has often prompted me to imagine how similar these working circumstances were likely to have been to those involved in building work during the Middle Ages and earlier.
Far removed from the privacy of the studio, the Pentecost mural was produced subject to a semi-public gaze. This demanded a response to working in a busy, shared environment and the inevitable genuine curiosity that came from all involved in the build. What stays in my mind now is the enthusiasm that George showed in explaining his ideas to all and the keenness he felt that it was an important part of his responsibility to do so. This was driven by the respect he showed for the complimentary knowledge and skills of the professionals and craftsmen round him. There was real warmth and respect in his strong recognition of the value of their work and experience. This also applied to his approach to the regular visits of the clergy that encouraged their enthusiastic acceptance of the modernity of the mural’s style and its technical uniqueness and which resulted in their evident growing pride and ownership of the mural.
I had known George as an inspiring teacher but never previously seen him operate in a more public arena and as a respected member of a team. His communication skills, his friendly openness towards individuals and his evident enjoyment in working in such a situation contributed greatly towards the success of the mosaic and the purposefulness felt by all. I recall the many enthusiastic discussions and the copious advice given by the workmen when we all regularly ate lunch together in the clerk of works’ hut which became a sort of tiny, lively bauhaus. They developed a highly protective attitude towards George and myself and became friendly protagonists of our work.
There are many different ways in how an artist and assistant might relate that depend upon personal outlooks and expectations. George went out of his way to make me feel that despite my inexperience, ours’ was a partnership. What I found rewarding was that George generously trusted me as his assistant to play a responsible role and always talked over the key decisions that emerged as the work progressed. This gave me an insight into the way he conceived of the work. It also meant I was able to benefit from a ‘hands on’ experience being permitted to complete some key sections of the work. I recall the thrill of this as a raw nineteen year old high on the scaffolding, adding details to the figures of the apostles. George’s later oil painting of the Pentecost under construction includes us as two small figures working side by side within a mesh of scaffolding. This is a reminder for me of the sense of partnership, trust and concentration involved as we sat together in semi-silence quietly willing the mural to emerge as if it alone was in charge.
Apart from issues of the interpretation of religious subject matter in a modern style, Mayor Marton’s choice of the technique of Byzantine based, articulated ‘face’ mosaic was an innovation as well as a potential source of controversy as it was totally unique in this country at the time. In its highly textured, reflective surface it challenged the conventions of familiar commercial flat surfaced mosaics and also introduced its own complexities. It involved sourcing the kind of glass tesserae used in Byzantine mosaics as well as old fashioned lime based mortars that had largely ceased to be used by the 1950’s. Such lime had to be matured in pits over an extended period to be of use and the Liverpool area was scoured for redundant and suitably old pits.
As I have explained elsewhere, lime mortars were also employed in fresco buono to chemically seal pigments permanently into the work. They equally have the advantage that their soft, minimally shrinking composition easily and securely accepts tesserae at a variety of angles and depths. As has been touched on in my other writing, such articulated surfaces are inherent to the way in which such face mosaics reflected light in a lively way and relate to the particular qualities of space and light within a building. In the case of the church of the Holy Ghost the raking light from each side was an important ingredient in the work as it modified the effect of the mural as a result of the changing light over time of day and season.
There was much pre-planning required. It was necessary to import coloured glass and gold faced tesserae from the only available source in Murano as well as locating surviving local lime pits. One innovation that George developed was to add to the traditional mortar recently developed synthetic adhesives to add strength to the mix. In a versatile and parallel way to expressing Christian iconography through a modern style, a comination of ancient and modern materials was destined to improve the work’s material stability.
My role as an assistant was quite defined. The regular daily routine had a satisfying, purposeful workman like rhythm about it. Materials and technique determined a particular way of methodical working. First tesserae had to be selected and cut in terms of colour, quantity, size and range suitable for a day’s work and the demands of the particular sections aimed to be completed. Mortar had to be prepared in quantities to supply each adjacent section in turn. Sufficient had to be available so as not to slow the work but as lime mortar only remains workable for a limited time, not in excessive and wasteful quantities. The height and arrangement of scaffold and ladders needed to be regularly adjusted, tessrae set out ready on the scaffold and mortar lifted into place. Much of this would have been familiar in a Byzantine church under construction in Constantinople or Ravenna.
It is fundamental to both fresco and mosaics of this kind that the design is conceived in discrete sections that follow outlines within the design so joints remain hidden. These sections must be fairly small in area and of a size that is manageable that can easily be worked within the time limits of the chemical setting of the mortar.. These practical limitations mean that any revisions are difficult and thus the work had to proceed with considerable certainty and confidence. Sections are inevitably only seen as isolated portions of the work and thus need to remain consistent in their handling and overall character to ensure the overall coherence of the work.
What I continue to recall after over sixty years, is Mayor Marton’s skill, creativity, humanity and generosity and the way in which he drew on his many varied talents and experience. He keenly grasped the opportunity to produce demanding public works of art and combine that with a full time teaching job and an active professional life as a painter.. As an antidote to the indulgence of some twentieth century art, he also managed to successfully combine knowledge and sound methodology and the role of history within a stylistically progressive approach. His method and approach conspired to produce what is artistically and historically a very important body of work of religious public art which is rightly widely celebrated.
Gordon Millar, former student of Mayer-Marton and art historian
September, 2017
Gordon Millar - Art Historian and former student of Mayer-Marton
The design and completion of any public work of art calls for defined skills and abilities, it also calls for a close collaboration of artist and patron. Working methods in public art are far removed from the protective isolation of the artist’s studio. Factors of cost, deadlines, an understanding of materials and location and even more important artistic integrity and a constructive and shared vision and a sympathetic approach to subject matter are crucial.
Conceiving of a public work of art and particularly a religious one was something of a balancing act in the twentieth century when it involved responding to questions of symbolism and style that would both satisfy client’s expectations and demonstrate how traditional ideas might be expressed in a modern idiom.
George Mayer-Marton in his extensive work for the Catholic Church in the northwest during the 1950’s brought many necessary skills to bear. His understanding of the needs of the Church depended upon his firm understanding of Christian liturgy and iconography. This came from the fact that he was not only a well recognised painter who as secretary of the progressive Hagenbund in Vienna had participated directly in the development of European modernism but that he was also an enlightened art historian. As well as this, through his connection in Munich with the research of Max Doerner during the 1920’s into historic artistic methods and materials, he shared valuable practical knowledge that proved key in the success of his mural works.
He possessed the kind of personal skills that were important in negotiating with clients. Mayor Marton was a charming and persuasive man who easily gained respect. He liked people and communicated well and easily developed an accord with those he met and worked with. This meant he was a good negotiator who could encourage clients to understand and accept a modern style even in the most conservative of circumstances.
There was the added complexity of thinking of the mosaic as an integral part of the architecture and directly responsive to the qualities of its spatial context. It was not inherently easy to design murals in the contemporary context of modernism when it was felt important at the time that buildings be stripped of decoration as a matter of principle. Too often then what murals were designed, ended up more as additions conceived simply as added pictures.
During the second half of the 1950’s I was fortunate to act as an assistant to George Mayor Marton in work in Manchester and to a greater extent in the installation of the mosaic depicting the Pentecost in the church of the Holy Ghost at Netherton close to Liverpool. This mosaic now resides in the Liverpool Metropolitan Cathedral. The church in a typical simple, rather undistinguished ‘fifties’ style, was built simultaneous with the installation of the mosaic. This called for effective collaboration on a day to day basis and cooperation between client, architects, builders and the artist concerning the practical scheduling of the build and the creation of the mural. This has often prompted me to imagine how similar these working circumstances were likely to have been to those involved in building work during the Middle Ages and earlier.
Far removed from the privacy of the studio, the Pentecost mural was produced subject to a semi-public gaze. This demanded a response to working in a busy, shared environment and the inevitable genuine curiosity that came from all involved in the build. What stays in my mind now is the enthusiasm that George showed in explaining his ideas to all and the keenness he felt that it was an important part of his responsibility to do so. This was driven by the respect he showed for the complimentary knowledge and skills of the professionals and craftsmen round him. There was real warmth and respect in his strong recognition of the value of their work and experience. This also applied to his approach to the regular visits of the clergy that encouraged their enthusiastic acceptance of the modernity of the mural’s style and its technical uniqueness and which resulted in their evident growing pride and ownership of the mural.
I had known George as an inspiring teacher but never previously seen him operate in a more public arena and as a respected member of a team. His communication skills, his friendly openness towards individuals and his evident enjoyment in working in such a situation contributed greatly towards the success of the mosaic and the purposefulness felt by all. I recall the many enthusiastic discussions and the copious advice given by the workmen when we all regularly ate lunch together in the clerk of works’ hut which became a sort of tiny, lively bauhaus. They developed a highly protective attitude towards George and myself and became friendly protagonists of our work.
There are many different ways in how an artist and assistant might relate that depend upon personal outlooks and expectations. George went out of his way to make me feel that despite my inexperience, ours’ was a partnership. What I found rewarding was that George generously trusted me as his assistant to play a responsible role and always talked over the key decisions that emerged as the work progressed. This gave me an insight into the way he conceived of the work. It also meant I was able to benefit from a ‘hands on’ experience being permitted to complete some key sections of the work. I recall the thrill of this as a raw nineteen year old high on the scaffolding, adding details to the figures of the apostles. George’s later oil painting of the Pentecost under construction includes us as two small figures working side by side within a mesh of scaffolding. This is a reminder for me of the sense of partnership, trust and concentration involved as we sat together in semi-silence quietly willing the mural to emerge as if it alone was in charge.
Apart from issues of the interpretation of religious subject matter in a modern style, Mayor Marton’s choice of the technique of Byzantine based, articulated ‘face’ mosaic was an innovation as well as a potential source of controversy as it was totally unique in this country at the time. In its highly textured, reflective surface it challenged the conventions of familiar commercial flat surfaced mosaics and also introduced its own complexities. It involved sourcing the kind of glass tesserae used in Byzantine mosaics as well as old fashioned lime based mortars that had largely ceased to be used by the 1950’s. Such lime had to be matured in pits over an extended period to be of use and the Liverpool area was scoured for redundant and suitably old pits.
As I have explained elsewhere, lime mortars were also employed in fresco buono to chemically seal pigments permanently into the work. They equally have the advantage that their soft, minimally shrinking composition easily and securely accepts tesserae at a variety of angles and depths. As has been touched on in my other writing, such articulated surfaces are inherent to the way in which such face mosaics reflected light in a lively way and relate to the particular qualities of space and light within a building. In the case of the church of the Holy Ghost the raking light from each side was an important ingredient in the work as it modified the effect of the mural as a result of the changing light over time of day and season.
There was much pre-planning required. It was necessary to import coloured glass and gold faced tesserae from the only available source in Murano as well as locating surviving local lime pits. One innovation that George developed was to add to the traditional mortar recently developed synthetic adhesives to add strength to the mix. In a versatile and parallel way to expressing Christian iconography through a modern style, a comination of ancient and modern materials was destined to improve the work’s material stability.
My role as an assistant was quite defined. The regular daily routine had a satisfying, purposeful workman like rhythm about it. Materials and technique determined a particular way of methodical working. First tesserae had to be selected and cut in terms of colour, quantity, size and range suitable for a day’s work and the demands of the particular sections aimed to be completed. Mortar had to be prepared in quantities to supply each adjacent section in turn. Sufficient had to be available so as not to slow the work but as lime mortar only remains workable for a limited time, not in excessive and wasteful quantities. The height and arrangement of scaffold and ladders needed to be regularly adjusted, tessrae set out ready on the scaffold and mortar lifted into place. Much of this would have been familiar in a Byzantine church under construction in Constantinople or Ravenna.
It is fundamental to both fresco and mosaics of this kind that the design is conceived in discrete sections that follow outlines within the design so joints remain hidden. These sections must be fairly small in area and of a size that is manageable that can easily be worked within the time limits of the chemical setting of the mortar.. These practical limitations mean that any revisions are difficult and thus the work had to proceed with considerable certainty and confidence. Sections are inevitably only seen as isolated portions of the work and thus need to remain consistent in their handling and overall character to ensure the overall coherence of the work.
What I continue to recall after over sixty years, is Mayor Marton’s skill, creativity, humanity and generosity and the way in which he drew on his many varied talents and experience. He keenly grasped the opportunity to produce demanding public works of art and combine that with a full time teaching job and an active professional life as a painter.. As an antidote to the indulgence of some twentieth century art, he also managed to successfully combine knowledge and sound methodology and the role of history within a stylistically progressive approach. His method and approach conspired to produce what is artistically and historically a very important body of work of religious public art which is rightly widely celebrated.
Gordon Millar, former student of Mayer-Marton and art historian
September, 2017
Gyuri sometimes stretched the truth a little, for example about his swimming prowess: “Arthur [Ballard] was always pulling George Mayer-Marton’s leg about his claim to have swum for his country before he came to England. We sometimes went to Cornwallis Street baths, off Duke Street, with Arthur and other members of staff and one afternoon he persuaded George to come along. George borrowed a swimsuit and astounded everybody by doing a racing dive and after a number of very fast lengths he jumped out, dressed and walked out. He never had his leg pulled again.”
Rod Murray, “Stuart Sutcliffe: Liverpool College of Art, Flats and Friends” from “Stuart Sutcliffe a retrospective” ed. MH Clough and C Fallows, publ. Victoria Gallery and Museum, Liverpool 2009.
Rod Murray, “Stuart Sutcliffe: Liverpool College of Art, Flats and Friends” from “Stuart Sutcliffe a retrospective” ed. MH Clough and C Fallows, publ. Victoria Gallery and Museum, Liverpool 2009.
My Friend Gyuri - Prof Carry Hauser
The memory of him lies hidden in the dim and distant past: my friend and colleague, the man and painter Georg Mayer-Marton. - Gyuri, which is the familiar form in Hungarian of the name Georg. I presume it was in the Café Museum. Where else would one have met in Vienna at that time than in one of the three principal cafés frequented by painters, the Central, where the pre-war art and literature that had survived the First World War were to be found? Or the Café Imperial (in the hotel of the same name on the Ring) or indeed the Café Museum, where at the regular table of the art historian Kurt Rathe one could meet poets, writers, musicians and even actors alongside painters and sculptors.
Georg Mayer-Marton - this is how I remember him: still very young with a head more like a musician’s than a painter’s; a little conventional; his clothes chosen with thought and taste, only very slightly giving away his parentage by his Hungarian accent. Later on, when I came into contact with Gyuri through our mutual work at the Hagenbund, he was a reliable co-worker.
It was the greatest inspiration of my generation of young people who had survived the Great War now to behold the miracle of art. The ecstasy, you might say, of this twirling dream of the lovely Twenties! It may be that others view this post-war time differently, blinded by the dingy colours of economic need, but for us, Gyuri and me, this was a life truly worth living. Not an easy one, though.
We were certainly indebted to our wives, who each helped out in their own way and encouraged us, even if Grete, Gyuri’s wife, was sometimes cross with me because I as President went to official receptions and functions more often than her husband did. I can still hear her: “You get the glory and Gyuri does the work!“
In the bitter days after March 1938 I often visited him and his wife. He had carefully and astutely prepared his work and his possessions to emigrate to England. It was a tragic twist of fate that all of this, having been saved from the Nazi barbarians, was destroyed in a bombing raid on London. I did not see my friend again. We exchanged letters briefly during my exile in Switzerland, but unfortunately and mysteriously this correspondence, as well as that with Alfred Kubin and the playwright and poet Franz Theodor Csokor, was lost. What is not lost is the memory of him, of our youth, our collective struggle and our art.
Professor Carry Hauser , friend of Mayer-Marton and Hagenbund President
The memory of him lies hidden in the dim and distant past: my friend and colleague, the man and painter Georg Mayer-Marton. - Gyuri, which is the familiar form in Hungarian of the name Georg. I presume it was in the Café Museum. Where else would one have met in Vienna at that time than in one of the three principal cafés frequented by painters, the Central, where the pre-war art and literature that had survived the First World War were to be found? Or the Café Imperial (in the hotel of the same name on the Ring) or indeed the Café Museum, where at the regular table of the art historian Kurt Rathe one could meet poets, writers, musicians and even actors alongside painters and sculptors.
Georg Mayer-Marton - this is how I remember him: still very young with a head more like a musician’s than a painter’s; a little conventional; his clothes chosen with thought and taste, only very slightly giving away his parentage by his Hungarian accent. Later on, when I came into contact with Gyuri through our mutual work at the Hagenbund, he was a reliable co-worker.
It was the greatest inspiration of my generation of young people who had survived the Great War now to behold the miracle of art. The ecstasy, you might say, of this twirling dream of the lovely Twenties! It may be that others view this post-war time differently, blinded by the dingy colours of economic need, but for us, Gyuri and me, this was a life truly worth living. Not an easy one, though.
We were certainly indebted to our wives, who each helped out in their own way and encouraged us, even if Grete, Gyuri’s wife, was sometimes cross with me because I as President went to official receptions and functions more often than her husband did. I can still hear her: “You get the glory and Gyuri does the work!“
In the bitter days after March 1938 I often visited him and his wife. He had carefully and astutely prepared his work and his possessions to emigrate to England. It was a tragic twist of fate that all of this, having been saved from the Nazi barbarians, was destroyed in a bombing raid on London. I did not see my friend again. We exchanged letters briefly during my exile in Switzerland, but unfortunately and mysteriously this correspondence, as well as that with Alfred Kubin and the playwright and poet Franz Theodor Csokor, was lost. What is not lost is the memory of him, of our youth, our collective struggle and our art.
Professor Carry Hauser , friend of Mayer-Marton and Hagenbund President
PETER DAVIES – LIVERPOOL SEEN
POST WAR ARTISTS ON MERSEYSIDE REDCLIFFE PRESS 1992
A Merseyside middle generation
George Mayer-Marton, the Hungarian emigre, also became Liverpudlian by adoption, and his last years teaching at Liverpool Art College overlapped with Horsfield’s first few years teaching there. In their differing ways each brought a wide knowledge of European painting into the college. Mayer-Marton was born in 1897 and served in the Austro-Hungarian army during the Great War. He was thus 20 years older than Horsfield, and had direct insight into the early phases of modern art. Indeed, he came into contact with cubism early, while studying at art academies in Vienna and Munich. In Vienna he was secretary of Hagenbund, the most progressive art society that was later banned by the Nazis. The rise of Hitler compelled Mayer-Marton to seek refuge in London in 1938. He was able to obtain a teaching job at a school in St Johns Wood. From 1940 to 1952 his output of work was held back, first by the destruction of his studio and its contents during the war, then by a demanding job lecturing for C.E.M.A. (later the Arts Council) that involved much travel. During these years he lived in a flat in Belsize Park. He was friendly with Martin Bell and after losing his lecturing job was encouraged to apply to Liverpool Art College, which accepted him in 1952. In 1960 his friend Hugh Scrutton wrote that “he gave great devotion to his students - it was his special belief that every student had some special talent.’ He introduced the craft of fresco and mosaic into the college, and encouraged the students to learn age-old techniques and paint chemistry that had long fallen out of fashion. Mayer-Marton also taught aesthetics and art history. He lived in a flat at Professor Frohlich’s house near the University and he kept a studio at the Bluecoat where, improvising with visual memory and modern ideas, he produced up to two hundred oils during his eight years on Merseyside. In 1960 he bought a house and started living with Wendy Moran, wife of the editor of a local newspaper. Mayer-Marton’s first wife, an Austrian pianist, had died in 1952.
Mayer-Marton enjoyed Liverpool to the full, and took maximum advantage of this final phase of his life. In particular, he enjoyed the accessibility to spectacular landscapes in Wales, the Lake District and Derbyshire, where he made many sketches that were used in the studio as starting points for elaborate oil and watercolour paintings. These finished works were seldom tamely topographical, however, for in them he imposed his own compositional order that and hidden parallels. While remaining recognisable, his landscapes, still lifes and interiors carried an independence of pattern, colour and design that gave them abstract significance as well as figurative and naturalistic association. He utilised aerial perspective on landscape and emphasised the linear furrows of ploughed fields, undulating hills, or meandering hedgerows. The interest in pure pattern, together with an earlier period in Ravenna, led him to start a school of mural decoration at the college in 1955. He had coloured glass imported from Italy. The mosaic course thrived until his early death from leukaemia in 1960. He was helped by Robin Riley, Gordon Millar and Eric Woodward in his mosaic enterprises. He also gained several commissions to decorate churches throughout the north-west. One commission for a Catholic church came from Walter Pater, a Polish architect. In 1988, Robin Riley had the painstaking job of removing the large mosaic of the Pentecost (1957) from the wall of the Church of the Holy Ghost at Netherton, Bootle, which was due for demolition. The impressive mosaic was transferred in May 1989 to the Roman Catholic Cathedral where, along with John Piper’s stained glass patterns, it introduces a high note of modernism into a religious setting.