Margit Varga (1908–2005) was an American artist, gallerist, journalist, art director, and art editor. Her artwork has been described as "

magical realism Magical realism, magic realism, or marvelous realism is a style or genre of fiction and art that presents a realistic view of the world while incorporating magical elements, often blurring the lines between speculation and reality. ''Magical rea ...

" and her work was known in the New York City-area and in Europe. 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. Varga worked for

Time magazine ''Time'' (stylized in all caps as ''TIME'') is an American news magazine based in New York City. It was published weekly for nearly a century. Starting in March 2020, it transitioned to every other week. It was first published in New York Cit ...

for 40 years.

Biography

Margit Varga was born on May 5, 1908, on the

Upper East Side The Upper East Side, sometimes abbreviated UES, is a neighborhood in the boroughs of New York City, borough of Manhattan in New York City. It is bounded approximately by 96th Street (Manhattan), 96th Street to the north, the East River to the e ...

Manhattan Manhattan ( ) is the most densely populated and geographically smallest of the Boroughs of New York City, five boroughs of New York City. Coextensive with New York County, Manhattan is the County statistics of the United States#Smallest, larg ...

in New York City, to parents from

Hungary Hungary is a landlocked country in Central Europe. Spanning much of the Pannonian Basin, 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 and ...

. She studied art at the

National Academy of Design The National Academy of Design is an honorary association of American artists, founded in New York City in 1825 by Samuel Morse, Asher Durand, Thomas Cole, Frederick Styles Agate, Martin E. Thompson, Charles Cushing Wright, Ithiel Town, an ...

; and at the

Art Students League of New York The Art Students League of New York is an art school in the American Fine Arts Society in Manhattan, New York City. The Arts Students League is known for its broad appeal to both amateurs and professional artists. Although artists may study f ...

, under Boardman Johnson and Robert Laurent. Varga established the Painters' and Sculptors' Gallery at 22 East 11th Street in Manhattan in 1932. 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. Varga lived in a townhouse at 739 Washington Street in the

West Village The West Village is a neighborhood in the western section of the larger Greenwich Village neighborhood of Lower Manhattan, New York City. The West Village is bounded by the Hudson River to the west and 14th Street (Manhattan), 14th Street to ...

until 1995, when she sold the building to

Dorothy Lichtenstein Dorothy Lichtenstein (born Dorothy Herzka; October 26, 1939 – July 4, 2024) was an American philanthropist. She was the second wife of artist Roy Lichtenstein, from 1968 to his death, in 1997. Life and career Lichtenstein was born in the Cr ...

. Varga died on April 8, 2005, in

Naples Naples ( ; ; ) is the Regions of Italy, regional capital of Campania and the third-largest city of Italy, after Rome and Milan, with a population of 908,082 within the city's administrative limits as of 2025, while its Metropolitan City of N ...

Florida Florida ( ; ) is a U.S. state, state in the Southeastern United States, Southeastern region of the United States. It borders the Gulf of Mexico to the west, Alabama to the northwest, Georgia (U.S. state), Georgia to the north, the Atlantic ...

. Her artwork can be found in museum collections including the

Museum of Fine Arts, Boston The Museum of Fine Arts (often abbreviated as MFA Boston or MFA) is an art museum in Boston, Massachusetts. It is the list of largest art museums, 20th-largest art museum in the world, measured by public gallery area. It contains 8,161 painting ...

Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts The Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts (PAFA) is a museum and private art school in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Founded in 1805, it is the longest continuously operating art museum and art school in the United States. The academy's museum ...

, the

Metropolitan Museum of Art The Metropolitan Museum of Art, colloquially referred to as the Met, is an Encyclopedic museum, encyclopedic art museum in New York City. By floor area, it is the List of largest museums, third-largest museum in the world and the List of larg ...

, and

Gilcrease Museum Gilcrease Museum, also known as the Thomas Gilcrease Institute of American History and Art, is a museum northwest of downtown Tulsa, Oklahoma housing the world's largest, most comprehensive collection of art of the American West, as well as a gr ...

References

External links

Margit Varga papers, 1931-1985
from

Archives of American Art The Archives of American Art is the largest collection of primary resources documenting the history of the visual arts in the United States. More than 20 million items of original material are housed in the Archives' research centers in Washing ...

, Smithsonian Institution 1908 births 2005 deaths American art directors People from the Upper East Side Art Students League of New York alumni National Academy of Design alumni American people of Hungarian descent Artists from New York City 20th-century American women painters 20th-century American painters {{US-painter-1900s-stub