Magda Cordell McHale

Born Magda Lustigova to a prominent family of grain merchants in Hungary, she fled to Egypt and then Palestine as a refugee during World War II to escape Nazi persecution. Here, she found work as a translator for British intelligence and met her first husband, Frank Cordell, who was also working for British intelligence. According to British architect Peter Smithson, Magda Cordell was "a force who had the capacity to turn her willpower to anything." ==Post war==

After the war, Lustigova and Cordell returned to London, where they established an artistic atelier at 52 Cleveland Square in Paddington, which they shared with the British Modern artist John McHale. She and her husband rapidly became an integral part of the avant-garde artistic milieu that congregated around the Institute of Contemporary Arts. They were actively involved in the Independent Group (IG) (1952–56), a cross-cultural discussion group that included artists, writers, architects and critics who rejected the traditional dichotomies of high and low culture. The IG challenged the official Modernist assumptions of British aesthetics and pioneered a progressive, interdisciplinary, consumer-based aesthetic of inclusiveness. Encouraged by their dialogue with the American intellectual Buckminster Fuller, the McHales dedicated themselves to sociological research and published extensively on the impact of technology and culture, mass communications and the future. They moved from university to university propounding their ideas, teaching and publishing. During this time Magda published five books (three in collaboration with her husband) on future trends, and sat on numerous editorial boards. ==Art==

McHale's artistic works were characterised by expressive figuration and heavily influenced by the Art Brut of continental painters such as Jean Dubuffet and Wols. As a rare female voice at this time, McHale's preoccupation with the female form explored existential questions. Her textured, impasto surfaces depict distorted forms that at once reflect the resilience of the human body and describe mid-20th-century anguish. McHale's work was acknowledged in articles and exhibitions of the day; the influential critic Reyner Banham included an illustration of her work in his 1955 article "The New Brutalism", in The Architectural Review. McHale showcased her monotypes and collages in a 1955 exhibition at the Institute of Contemporary Arts (ICA) and her paintings at the Hanover Gallery in 1956, with later exhibitions at the University at Buffalo. and the Albright-Knox Art Gallery in Buffalo, New York. ==Academic work and teaching==

John and Magda moved from the UK to Southern Illinois University where John managed the World Resources Inventory with Buckminster Fuller, then to SUNY Binghamton where John completed his PhD and, with Magda, started the Center for Integrative Studies. Later, they moved to Texas, where the center was operated under the aegis of University of Houston. After the death of John McHale in 1978, Magda Cordell McHale was invited to Buffalo, New York, where she established and became director of the Centre for Integrative Studies at the State University of New York. The main focus of the centre was global trends, inter-generational shifts in thought and the impact of new technologies on contemporary culture. Magda Cordell McHale was on faculty in the Design Studies department in the School of Architecture & Planning at the University at Buffalo (also referred to as SUNY Buffalo). The department was dissolved in the late 1980s, at which point, she moved to the Department of Planning (later the Department of Urban and Regional Planning). Her areas of scholarship included future studies; long-range consequences of social, cultural, and technological change on global societies. In 2000 she endowed the McHale Fellowship at the University of Buffalo School of Architecture & Planning to support design work that speculates on the impact of new technologies. She worked "tirelessly" as vice-president of the World Futures Federation and the World Academy of Art and Science. ==References==