A. Bandi Schima Applied Artist, Master of the Golden Wreath
A. Bandi Schima was born on November 23, 1882 in Orosháza, as the third child of master locksmith Károly Schima. After graduating from elementary school, the talented and diligent young man became a student at the Arad Metal Industry Vocational School. In 1904, he traveled to Berlin with a study scholarship from the Arad Chamber of Commerce and Industry, where he worked in the workshops of several renowned industrial arts and attended the locksmith art courses of the College of Applied Arts. In 1906, he settled in Bratislava and worked as a foreman at the Wood and Metal Industry Vocational School.
A. Bandi Schima was transferred to Győr in 1919, after the Czech invasion of Bratislava. He taught here at the Győr State Wood and Metal Industry Vocational School (today Jedlik Ányos Mechanical and Informatics Secondary School and College). In 1922, he became a member of the Győr Fine and Applied Arts Society, where he held several important functions until 1937. From 1925 to 1937, he was the society's artistic secretary.
In 1928, he won a 12-week study trip abroad at the "Az Est" magazine competition, during which he visited Munich, Nuremberg, Berlin, Leipzig, Frankfurt and Paris.
In 1932, the Budapest IV. At a national crafts exhibition “Carpathian Guard (1914-15)" with his work on the theme of the First World War, he won the title of master of the Golden Wreath, which is the greatest professional recognition of the time.
In 1935, at the suggestion of the National Center of Industrial Organizations, A. Bandi Schima received a study scholarship from the Italian Handicrafts Association. During his four-month study trip, he visited the museums, galleries and landmarks of Venice, Florence, Rome, Naples, Padua, Palermo, precisely documenting what he saw and experienced in his thick travel diaries.
After returning home from his study abroad, he left the ranks of the members of the Győr Fine and Applied Arts Society. From then on, he lived and created more and more withdrawn.
During his life, he fulfilled countless ecclesiastical and secular orders, many of which are masterpieces created with real technical feats. In addition to his liturgical objects, his souvenirs and unique objects of use created with a special imagination were widely known and popular.
In Győr, among others, the Golden Ship (1939) and the Blackbird Nest signboards (1938), the outer and inner wrought iron gates and red copper tabernacle of the Blessed Virgin Mary Cathedral (1940), the large wrought iron crucifix and candle holders of the Lutheran church in Nádorváros bear the traces of his hand in Győr (1938). In Pannonhalma, he created the National Flag (1940), the monstrance of the Church of St. Stephen in Sopron (1944) and countless other outstanding works throughout Hungary.
In addition to the objects of applied art, his extremely rich legacy contains dozens of plans with independent graphic value, as well as a large amount of documentary material, as well as nearly 6,000 archival photos and glass negatives, mostly made by himself, which were donated by the artist in 1964 into the Xántus János Museum.
The life and work of industrial artist A. Bandi Schima, master of the Golden Wreath, is considered one of the treasures of the Győr-Moson-Sopron County Treasury, and its two liturgical objects enrich Csorna's settlement treasury.
The portrait film made about him was broadcast by the film newscast a year before his death in May 1958:
https://filmhiradokonline.hu/watch.php?id=13938
Emese Pápai, art historian and chief museologist
The photographs come from the photo library of the Rómer Flóris Museum of Art and History.
