MONTREAL- In the corner of a basement in an
Outremont home, the stern countenance of David
Ben-Gurion looks down form its pedestal. For over
30yrs., the bronze bust by pre-eminent Quebec
sculptor Paul Lancz has been a fond reminder of a
meeting he and Israel’s founding father had in
1967 in Montreal in the heady days following the Six
Days War. Lancz, who had emigrated form Hungary10
years earlier, was commissioned by State of istail
Bonds to produce a small terra cotta bust of Ben
gurion, copies of which were to be given as tokens of
appreciation to 100 purchasers of $ 10,000 or more of
the securities. Lancz did most of the work form
photographs, but when Ben-Gurion came to Montreal to
speak at a Bond dinner he spent about 1 ˝ hours with
him, giving the bust its final touches. A wealthy
member of the Jewish community, whose name now
escapes Lancz, 79, commissioned him to cast the bust
in bronze, which he donated to the Ben-Gurion Airport
in Tel Aviv. On a whim, Lancz cast a second one for
himself. And so that solid bald head, with the wisps
of hair floating at the sides, has ruled benevolently
over Lancz’s studio, where there can be found
the plaster models of many of his other subjects form
a 40- year career, including U.S. president John. K
Kennedy Toronto mayor Nathan Phillips, ballet
mistress Ludmilla Chiriaeff, and businessmen Pierre
Peladeau, Rene Lepine and Alexis Nihon. Ben-Gurion
was dusted off recently and put on public display at
Place des Arts for the Canadian Zionist Federation’s
concert in honor of Israel’s 50th anniversary.
Lancz’s wife of 47 years died a few months ago
and he has sold his three-storey cottage, where he
has lived and worked for 40 years and is moving into
a small condo in St. Sauveur, near his daughter.
Still creating
He intends to keep working, but he won’t have
the space he has now. He’d like Ben-Gurion to go
to a good home. " Ben - Gurion was quite a small
man physically, and when I met him he was past 80,
but you could feel this fantastic power, the strength
of his personality. He was like a lion." Lancz
said. Lancz wanted that iron will to whine through in
his rendering of Ben-Gurion’s visage, and he
succeeded. The eyes are penetrating, yet tinged with
an avuncular kindness. " a bronze bust shouldn’t
be a photograph. I would say I add between 25 and 30
percent from my imagination to what is there in
reality because bronze has no color, no blood. It isn’t
alive. Lancz describes Ben-Gurion’s features
themselves as " interesting.. a real Jewish
face. " During much of the time Lancz spent with
the Israeli elder statesman in his Queen Elizabeth
Hotel room, the two men sang together the songs of
the left-wing Zionist youth group, Hashomer hatzair,,
to which they had both belonged. " He was very
pleased that I could still remember them," said
lancz, who hadn’t then and still hasn’t
visited Israel. Ben-Gurion liked the model Lancz
sculpted before his eyes., and when the sitting was
finished he carved his name- in Hebrew- in the
shoulder of wet clay and this is quite visible on the
bronze. Although rather frail and hard of hearing,
lancz is still creating. Among his new works are
busts of artist Jean-Paul Lemieux, which is to be
unveiled in his native Quebec City in September, and
premier René Levesque, which was commissioned by
Hydro- Quebec. " I remember I met lLevesque on
St. Lawrence Boulevard years ago and asked him if I
could do a sculpture of him. He said, "
later," and I said, " I might not be here
later". As it turned out he went before me, and
I had to make his bust from photos. Over the years,
lancz has immortalized in bronze and sometimes marble
such eminent Quebec personalities as Paul-Emile
Cardinal Leger ( who came to his home in the heart of
the Chassidic community for five sittings), Daniel
Johnson Sr. And Dr. Armand Frappier. Lancz finds just
a bit of irony in the fact that a Jewish immigrant,
who speaks little French, became so favored by the
province’s elite. One of his most personally
meaningful assignments was Raoul Wallenberg, whose
bust the Jewish community erected as a memorial in
the garden behind downtown Christ Church Cathedral.
Lancz, who was in Budapest during the war working for
the Hungarian army, knew firsthand of Wallenberg’s
efforts to save Hungarian Jews form the Nazis. Lancz
lost the great majority of his 170 relatives in the
Holocaust. His Kennedy bust, commissioned by Birks
jewellers, can be seen at the corner of President
Kennedy and Jeanne mance streets. Lancz was already
an established sculpture in Hungary before he left in
1957 in the wake of the revolution, but his early
interest was in figurative art. But after arriving
penniless, he did what he had to do to make a living.
His first commission in Canada was from Seagram
executive Abe Bronfman, who wanted a bust of himself.
He later did his brother Allan as well. More
recently, he did a small head of Zionist pioneer
Theodor Herzl for their nephew, Edgar Bronfman, which
was also exhibited at Placce des Arts beside
Ben-Gurion.