Father, son going for (bronze)bust.
By Pierre Goad.
THE HISTORY of Montreal will be busting out all over
if Paul Lancz get their way. Paul , 69, master
sculptor, and his son ,Peter 31, master salesman ,
want to cast famous Montreal’s in bronze and put
the city’s history on display for current and
future generations to see. " I don’t make
the sculptures for me, but for history, " Paul
said. " As a sculptor I am teaching people
history in my own way. That’s the whole theory
behind this idea of a Montreal pantheon.’’
The dictionary says a pantheon is a temple dedicated
to the gods, or a public building dedicated to the
great men and women of a nation. Paul and Peter Lancz
‘s dream is of more modest dimensions.
Hungary native
An area in an existing public building would do just
fine as a place where a series of bronze busts of
great Montrealers could be put on permanent display .
A native of Hungary who came to Canada after the 1956
uprising , Paul said he’s influenced by European
ideas. " When I was growing up in Hungary there
was sculpture all around. If they open a school in
Hungary , any public building , they put in a
sculpture . That idea is completely missing here.
Trained as a sculptor, Paul went into the
picture-framing business after arriving in Canada,
and until five years ago, sculpture commissions were
few and far between . The past few years have seen a
bronze bust boom of sorts.
Recent work
Cardinal Leger , Dr. Armand Frappier, Senator Paul
David , tycoon Alexis Nihon, real estate developer
Rene Lepin e and his wife, and Jean Paul Morin,
founder of Lasalle College, are some of Lancz’s
recent works. Peter Lancz is one reason the sculpture
business has picked up. A few years back Peter went
door-to-door in Westmount selling his father’s
paintings, a sideline to his portrait sculpting , and
managed to pick up a couple of bust commissions.
These days Peter has given up the door-to-door
selling and pitches sculpture by letter and in
meetings. This spring a bust Paul did of former
Quebec premier Daniel Johnson will be unveiled. And
while Peter works to line up a site and the money to
get a full-fledged pantheon off the ground , Paul has
his eyes on two powerful faces: former Quebec premier
Rene Levesque and former prime minister Pierre
Trudeau.