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Magda Cordell

1921–2008

No. 12 1960
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In Tate Britain

Modern and Contemporary British Art

Biography

Magda Cordell McHale (née Lustigova; June 24, 1921 – February 21, 2008) was a Hungarian artist, futurist, and educator. She was a founding member of the Independent Group which was a British movement that originated Pop Art which grew out of a fascination with American mass culture and post-WWII technologies. Later, she was a faculty member in the University at Buffalo School of Architecture & Planning.

"I was filled with pain and I hoped for a better world," she recounted later. This expression of hope came to define her working practices for the rest of her life. “Society needs to know where it has been before it can know where it is going,” was her oft-cited mantra.

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Independent Group

Artworks

  • Figure (Woman)

    Magda Cordell
    1956–7
    On display at Tate Britain part of Modern and Contemporary British Art
  • No. 12

    Magda Cordell
    1960

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