Amerigo Tot

Who was Amerigo Tot?

Amerigo Tot was a Hungarian sculptor and occasional actor. He was born in Fehérvárcsurgó, Hungary and moved to Rome, where he lived for the rest of his life. He studied in Budapest under Ferenc Helbing and György Leszkovszky from 1926 until 1928, and under László Moholy-Nagy at the Bauhaus in Germany until 1933. As the Nazis came to power he moved to Rome and worked sculpting memorials on a stipend from the Roman Hungarian Academy, where he eventually became an adviser. He fought in the Italian resistance movement starting in 1943.

He first received international recognition for his work on the frieze in Roma Termini station. He began doing abstract works in the 1950s. He returned home to Hungary several times, including 1937, 1939 and in 1969 which was a long prepared step from the side of the Hungarian communist culture-buro. At home he was a highly celebrated "world famous" artist. He had big exhibitions. He did traditional works, including a Madonna sculpture in his hometown, and very famous abstract sculptures, public monuments too, like Microcosm in Macrocosm, His Majesty, the Kilowatt in Kecskemét. The Amerigo Tot Museum in Budapest is named after him.