Festival speaker

NORWAY – The public is invited to a talk by David Sanderson about the Norway Summer Festival “focus figure,” Lajos Matolcsy, at 7 p.m. Thursday, July 6, at the Norway Memorial Library. Matolcsy was one of the founders of the Western Maine Art Group in the early 1960s.

Sanderson will present a biography of Matolcsy, starting with his birth in Hungary in 1905, and continuing through World War II in Europe where he fought in the Hungarian Army and then with the resistance.

Matolcsy came to the United States in 1951 and to the Oxford Hills in 1959 where he died in 1982. The talk will fill in with his years in Maine as an art teacher to both adults and children and with the establishment of the WMAG.

This is the fourth “focus figure” for the Norway Summer Festival that has also celebrated Mellie Dunham, Vivian Akers and George Howe. This talk will be kick off this year’s 34th annual Sidewalk Art Show started by the Western Maine Art Group in 1972. For more information call the Norway Memorial Library at 743-5309.

Art display

NORWAY – The second of three First Fridays will be held from 6 to 9 p.m. Friday, July 7, at Norway Memorial Library. Works by Lajos Matolcsy and Lee Bean, a former student of Matolcsy and a founding member of the Western Maine Art Group, will be on display throughout July.

The library’s focus for summer art displays has been to feature Matolcsy and his students and has shown works by Ann Beyer and Helen Anne Morton during June. In August, paintings by Marion Stewart and Ellie Viles will be shown. First Friday’s are open to the public and are in conjunction with First Fridays at three other locations, McLaughlin Garden and the Painted Mermaid Gallery in South Paris and the Commons at Fare Share Market in Norway. Times may vary between locations.