Nagy Zoltán, the banknote designer

Nagy Zoltán, the banknote designer

Securities play an important role in the financial life of a country; therefore, protection against counterfeiting is of utmost importance. A copper engraving alone provides protection, as it is almost impossible to make an exact copy of the same thing.
The forint banknotes gradually introduced from 1947 onwards perfectly satisfied this criterion, so there was no reason to replace them until the 1990s, when digital form production and photocopiers came into play. In the 1960s and 1970s, he performed mainly minor or major changes, corrections and revisions (such as a new date or a new signature due to a change in the signatory’s identity), which were made to the money partly due to politics and partly due to the increase in security requirements. The only independent banknote designed by Zoltán Nagy is the purple 500 forint issued in 1970, with the portrait of Endre Ady on the obverse and a view of Budapest with the Erzsébet Bridge in the centre on the reverse.
Even though he had limited opportunities to design banknotes from the 1970s onwards, he could practise this part of his profession through the so-called test forms, or dummy banknotes, which were a significant task from a development and practical point of view.

Zoltán Nagy, the stamp designer

Banknote Printing Company was involved in the production of stamps in the early period of Zoltán Nagy’s career, which allowed him to design significantly more stamps than Endre Horváth. In a period of 30 years between 1947 and 1977, over 200 stamps of Zoltán Nagy’s designs were issued.
In the first decade, his rich output was dominated by the motifs dictated by the new political regime and situation. However, in the following period Zoltán Nagy was assigned other tasks, which he accomplished with the same professional care, exhibiting excellent drawing skills and amazing characterisation. The historical portraits of the People’s Army Day 1952 series are some of his most memorable works of art. Portraiture has always been considered the “pinnacle of art”, as the perfect illustration and rendering of a human face has been one of the most challenging skills since antiquity and it still is to the present day. Zoltán Nagy stands out among Hungarian stamp designers exactly because of his achievements in portraiture. His outstanding engraved stamp designs include the 1954 Jókai block.
Moreover, he had the opportunity to design a commemorative stamp to mark the 50th anniversary of the founding of his first and only workplace in 1976.
His creed that he implemented at a high degree was: “Hungarian stamps should not only carry value, but also be a work of art”.