In the funerary monument of Zádor Györgyi, Bory Jenő placed an artistic career and the acting profession at the heart of his memorial: the falling masks beside the figure evoke the world of the theatre.
Zádor Gyöngyi (1920–1941) was a promising talent of Hungarian theatre. She graduated from the Academy of Drama in 1938 and appeared on stage as a member of the National Theatre between 1938 and 1941. Among her film roles, Életre ítéltek! may be singled out, in which she appeared opposite Pál Jávor. Her short but successful career was brought to an end by her tragic death.
Bory Jenő made a memorial for her grave in 1942. The work consists of a marble statue 200 centimetres high and an architectural structure of artificial stone 130 centimetres high. The funerary monument is in Plot 11 of Kerepesi Cemetery in Budapest and is signed “Bory Jenő 1942”. The central figure of the composition is a slender, delicately modelled female figure standing on the summit of a plinth suggestive of a stage. The figure’s distinctive feature is that theatrical masks fall away from her, revealing the young woman’s face of pure and sorrowful beauty. With this symbolic solution, Bory captured the essence of the acting profession: behind roles and masks there is always the person. The funerary monument recalls both the world of the stage and a life tragically cut short.
The original plaster version of the work has survived and is now in the collection of Bory Castle in Székesfehérvár. The work was also regarded by contemporary specialists as significant: it featured in the Műcsarnok Winter Exhibition of 1942–1943.
The lines inscribed on the funerary monument express with particular poignancy the memory of the artist lost too soon: “You who walked upon the earth as an angel, why did you have to become an angel, leaving behind your loved ones and your beloved?”
The funerary monument of Zádor Gyöngyi is one of the most lyrical works of Bory Jenő’s funerary sculpture, evoking through the symbols of the theatre the memory of a young artist and the fragility of life.