Esther Vécsey Mattyasovszky Zsolnay died in Budapest, Hungary, on January 10, 2021, at age 81. She had lived in Hungary since 1990. Previously she taught art history and museum studies at the College of Wooster, Wooster, Ohio, where she was the college museum’s curator. She was an assistant professor at Rice University, Houston, Texas, and became director of art galleries both at Rice University and at the University of Houston.
Esther was born on May 23, 1939, in Hungary into an aristocratic family. Her father was Major General Aladár Vécsey and her mother was Judith Gyenes. In 1944, General Vécsey evacuated his family with four suitcases from Pécs to the West as the Hungarian government crumbled before Soviet forces. The family spent five years on the run, including time in refugee camps in Austria, a period in Rome, Italy, and a stop in Venezuela before they arrived in New York in 1950. Following Esther’s father’s death in 1951, the family moved to Pasadena, California. In 1956, after the failed Hungarian Revolution, Esther learned that one of her first cousins, Pál Maléter, had been captured and executed by the Soviets. Maléter is considered one of the five martyrs of the revolution. According to a 2015 article in the Pasadena Weekly, “in 1989 Dr. Vécsey was invited to attend the reburial of ‘the five martyrs of 1956.’” It was there that she met Tamás Zsolnay, whom she married the following year.
Esther attended Flintridge and St. Andrew high schools in Pasadena. She studied at several colleges and universities in the US and Europe, including the University of California, Berkeley and UCLA. In 1966 she was studying art at the Accademia di Belle Arti in Rome and producing acquafortes that she bestowed on friends. While in Rome, she worked as a fashion model and for the magazine L’Espresso. She earned her PhD in theology and the visual arts from the Graduate Theological Union and UC Berkeley.
With her husband, Tamás Mattyasovszky-Zsolnay, former chief mechanical engineer at the famed Zsolnay Ceramics and Pyrogranite Factories, Esther researched and published the first books on the architectural ceramics produced by the Pécs Factory, illustrated with Mr. Zsolnay’s photographs. Among her most noteworthy publications is The Zsolnay Phenomenon, published by Coup de Fouet, Barcelona, 2004. Esther was also a contributor to the former English-language weekly, The Budapest Sun, where she reviewed cultural subjects.
In 1998, using her own funds, Esther founded the Hungaria Nostra Foundation of Los Angeles, Inc., with the initial intent to encourage, assist, and otherwise engage in the preservation of and restoration of historically significant architectural buildings and sites in Central and Eastern Europe. With her background in art history, she provided the inspiration and guidance to help identify many of the projects to which Hungaria Nostra has provided support. The foundation remains forever indebted to Esther Vécsey for her original vision, her commitment of the first endowment, and her insights in selecting projects worthy of our support.
Esther was preceded in death by her husband. Survivors include a half-sister, Judith Ybl of Pasadena, California.
George Paul Csicsery, a writer and independent filmmaker, has produced 35 documentaries on historical, ethnographic and cultural subjects, including Where the Heart Roams (1987) and Hungry for Monsters (2003). His films Troop 214(1997 and 2008) and Songs Along A Stony Road (2011) explore recent Hungarian history and culture. Angel of Mercy, a documentary about Sister Margit Slachta, who saved over a thousand Jewish children during the Hungarian Holocaust, is scheduled for completion in 2023.
His films on mathematical subjects include N is a Number: A Portrait of Paul Erdős (1993), which was awarded the 2010 Ember Judit Audience Favorite award at the First Los Angeles Hungarian Documentary Film Festival. Julia Robinson and Hilbert’s Tenth Problem, a one-hour biographical documentary, and Hard Problems: The Road to the World’s Toughest Math Contest, premiered in January 2008. His most recent films in the mathematical biography and documentary genre are Taking the Long View: The Life of Shiing-shen Chern (2011); Counting from Infinity (2015); Navajo Math Circles (2016); Secrets of the Surface: The Mathematical Vision of Maryam Mirzakhani (2020); and Journeys of Black Mathematicians: Forging Resilience (2024) & Creating Pathways (2025). (www.zalafilms.com)
George received the 2009 Joint Policy Board for Mathematics (JPBM) Communications Award for bringing mathematics to nonmathematical audiences. He is also a recipient of the 2008 Árpád Academy Gold Medal awarded by The Hungarian Association.
CSILLA CSOBOTH
Csilla Csoboth, MD, PhD, was born in San Francisco to Hungarian parents, who immigrated to the US in 1956. She lived in Hungary for over twenty years, experiencing the last four years of communism, the fall of the Iron Curtain, and the rebirth of democracy. She completed her medical studies in Budapest and worked for over a decade at the Semmelweis University Institute of Behavioral Sciences. To reach even further back, she was also a student at the Ungarisches Gymnasium (Hungarian School) in Kastl, Germany, for five years.
Csilla has been immersed in Hungarian culture since an early age. Her love for the arts flourished through her upbringing and frequent travels to Hungary as a child. Living in Hungary for more than two decades made her appreciate the many aspects of Hungarian culture, arts and architecture, and fueled her passion for the preservation and restoration of the cultural richness inside and outside of the borders of Hungary. She has strong ties to Hungary through her family, friends and the Hungarian community in the San Francisco Bay Area, where she currently lives.
STEVEN KOVÁCS
Steven Kovács is a writer-director-producer of the feature films, ’68 and Angel Blue, in addition to several short films. He received an Oscar nomination for his documentary Arthur and Lillie. As chief of production of Roger Corman’s New World Pictures, he oversaw the making of Deathsport, Avalanche, Up From the Depths, Saint Jack and The Lady in Red. He produced José Luis Borau’s film On the Line.
Steve has been a professor of film at Stanford University and San Francisco State University, and has taught screenwriting and directing at the Hungarian Academy for Theater, Film and Television as a Fulbright lecturer. He is the author of the book, From Enchantment to Rage: The Story of Surrealist Cinema, and articles on film, politics and the arts. He has also written fiction, poetry and translations of the poems of Miklós Radnóti and Mihály Babits.
WILMA PARKER DE PAVLOFF
Career artist Wilma Parkerde Pavloff is a graduate of the Rhode Island School of Design and the Art Institute of Chicago. Her work is collected in fourteen museums. She was selected by the U.S. Navy to create the Naval Air Station, Alameda, base-closure painting, NAS Alameda. A member of Tailhook, she currently paints for the Blues and Royals, a cavalry regiment of the British Army, and is collected at the Household Cavalry Archive Museum, Windsor, UK.
Wilma has volunteered as a citizen advisor to the San Francisco Redevelopment Agency, acting as chair of the Plan Amendment Committee for her SoMa (South of Market) neighborhood. She has served as a docent at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art and at the Haas-Lilienthal House. She is a past trustee of the Rhode Island School of Design.
The daughter of an architect, Wilma continues to work out of her central SoMa historic Dray Horse Stable studio, and paints summers at the Mashomack Polo Club meets, Pine Plains, NY, and from her Casa Sara studio on Vieques, Puerto Rico. (www.wilmaparker.com)
PETER SZABADI
Peter Szabadi, Esq., has been closely involved with the work of the Hungaria Nostra Foundation from its inception, and serves as corporate secretary for Hungaria Nostra of Los Angeles, Inc.
Peter was born in Budapest, Hungary, and immigrated with his family to the United States at the age of 14, as a consequence of the Hungarian Revolution. He has lived in New York City, San Francisco and Los Angeles, with extended sojourns to Italy. He became a lawyer in 1967 in New York and in San Francisco in 1971. His litigation practice has been primarily in the fields of civil rights and labor law. He earned a second degree in archaeology at UC Berkeley.
With his wife, Michele Marsh, Peter lives in Idyllwild, California, balancing his legal work with his love of travel and the arts and photography. He studied photography with Richard Misrach in San Francisco, an influential social and landscape photographer in the 1980s.
DITTA TAHY
Ditta Tahy was born in Kaposvár, Hungary. She graduated in media studies and Hungarian literature and grammar at Pázmány Péter Catholic University, and completed Turkish studies at Eötvös Lorand University. She started her career as a journalist in Budapest, then worked as a Hungarian teacher in the Hungarian Cultural Institute in Istanbul, where she also worked with Hungarian children living in the diaspora. Ditta is currently employed at the Hungarian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade, where she deals with Hungarian-Turkish relations.
She is interested in different cultures, and in her free time, she travels the world with her family and takes advantage of Budapest’s vibrant cultural life, including the theater, museums, and concerts. Whenever she can, Ditta visits Lake Balaton to explore the cultural and natural sights around the lake.
SOFIYA URBÁN
Sofiya Urbán graduated with a bachelor of arts degree in photography from Moholy-Nagy University of Art and Design (MOME) in Budapest in 2015. She went on to study film and video, earning an MA in media design. Sofiya has worked in the fashion industry as a stylist and photographer’s assistant, and as deputy editor-in-chief at Nero Journal (Nero homme at the time). She was a trainee in the set decoration department at Pioneer Picture Production, where she was an assistant set director on films and commercials. Sofiya has worked at Bergx2, Continental Tobacco Group, Eleven Australia and Ashanti Cosmetics, and as a graphic designer on a Netflix series. She is currently directing a short film.
MOLLY WALKER
Molly A. Walker is a writer and editor and fourth-generation Californian, growing up with strong ties to both ranching and journalism in the San Francisco East Bay. Following graduation from UC Berkeley, she was a reporter for the Pleasanton Times weekly. She edited trade magazines and worked on the communications/public relations teams of several corporations before establishing her own communication consulting practice, Walker Communications, in 1999. Her clients have included public and private businesses, unified and community college districts, nonprofits, filmmakers and authors.
Molly was a longtime volunteer leader in the International Association of Business Communicators, and served as San Francisco chapter president and IABC Pacific Plains Region lead chapter advocate. She is a board member and past chair of the San Francisco Public Relations Round Table.
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Who We Are
Our Founder
Esther Vécsey Mattyasovszky Zsolnay died in Budapest, Hungary, on January 10, 2021, at age 81. She had lived in Hungary since 1990. Previously she taught art history and museum studies at the College of Wooster, Wooster, Ohio, where she was the college museum’s curator. She was an assistant professor at Rice University, Houston, Texas, and became director of art galleries both at Rice University and at the University of Houston.
Esther was born on May 23, 1939, in Hungary into an aristocratic family. Her father was Major General Aladár Vécsey and her mother was Judith Gyenes. In 1944, General Vécsey evacuated his family with four suitcases from Pécs to the West as the Hungarian government crumbled before Soviet forces. The family spent five years on the run, including time in refugee camps in Austria, a period in Rome, Italy, and a stop in Venezuela before they arrived in New York in 1950. Following Esther’s father’s death in 1951, the family moved to Pasadena, California. In 1956, after the failed Hungarian Revolution, Esther learned that one of her first cousins, Pál Maléter, had been captured and executed by the Soviets. Maléter is considered one of the five martyrs of the revolution. According to a 2015 article in the Pasadena Weekly, “in 1989 Dr. Vécsey was invited to attend the reburial of ‘the five martyrs of 1956.’” It was there that she met Tamás Zsolnay, whom she married the following year.
Esther attended Flintridge and St. Andrew high schools in Pasadena. She studied at several colleges and universities in the US and Europe, including the University of California, Berkeley and UCLA. In 1966 she was studying art at the Accademia di Belle Arti in Rome and producing acquafortes that she bestowed on friends. While in Rome, she worked as a fashion model and for the magazine L’Espresso. She earned her PhD in theology and the visual arts from the Graduate Theological Union and UC Berkeley.
With her husband, Tamás Mattyasovszky-Zsolnay, former chief mechanical engineer at the famed Zsolnay Ceramics and Pyrogranite Factories, Esther researched and published the first books on the architectural ceramics produced by the Pécs Factory, illustrated with Mr. Zsolnay’s photographs. Among her most noteworthy publications is The Zsolnay Phenomenon, published by Coup de Fouet, Barcelona, 2004. Esther was also a contributor to the former English-language weekly, The Budapest Sun, where she reviewed cultural subjects.
In 1998, using her own funds, Esther founded the Hungaria Nostra Foundation of Los Angeles, Inc., with the initial intent to encourage, assist, and otherwise engage in the preservation of and restoration of historically significant architectural buildings and sites in Central and Eastern Europe. With her background in art history, she provided the inspiration and guidance to help identify many of the projects to which Hungaria Nostra has provided support. The foundation remains forever indebted to Esther Vécsey for her original vision, her commitment of the first endowment, and her insights in selecting projects worthy of our support.
Esther was preceded in death by her husband. Survivors include a half-sister, Judith Ybl of Pasadena, California.
Members of the Board
GEORGE CSICSERY
George Paul Csicsery, a writer and independent filmmaker, has produced 35 documentaries on historical, ethnographic and cultural subjects, including Where the Heart Roams (1987) and Hungry for Monsters (2003). His films Troop 214(1997 and 2008) and Songs Along A Stony Road (2011) explore recent Hungarian history and culture. Angel of Mercy, a documentary about Sister Margit Slachta, who saved over a thousand Jewish children during the Hungarian Holocaust, is scheduled for completion in 2023.
His films on mathematical subjects include N is a Number: A Portrait of Paul Erdős (1993), which was awarded the 2010 Ember Judit Audience Favorite award at the First Los Angeles Hungarian Documentary Film Festival. Julia Robinson and Hilbert’s Tenth Problem, a one-hour biographical documentary, and Hard Problems: The Road to the World’s Toughest Math Contest, premiered in January 2008. His most recent films in the mathematical biography and documentary genre are Taking the Long View: The Life of Shiing-shen Chern (2011); Counting from Infinity (2015); Navajo Math Circles (2016); Secrets of the Surface: The Mathematical Vision of Maryam Mirzakhani (2020); and Journeys of Black Mathematicians: Forging Resilience (2024) & Creating Pathways (2025). (www.zalafilms.com)
George received the 2009 Joint Policy Board for Mathematics (JPBM) Communications Award for bringing mathematics to nonmathematical audiences. He is also a recipient of the 2008 Árpád Academy Gold Medal awarded by The Hungarian Association.
CSILLA CSOBOTH
Csilla Csoboth, MD, PhD, was born in San Francisco to Hungarian parents, who immigrated to the US in 1956. She lived in Hungary for over twenty years, experiencing the last four years of communism, the fall of the Iron Curtain, and the rebirth of democracy. She completed her medical studies in Budapest and worked for over a decade at the Semmelweis University Institute of Behavioral Sciences. To reach even further back, she was also a student at the Ungarisches Gymnasium (Hungarian School) in Kastl, Germany, for five years.
Csilla has been immersed in Hungarian culture since an early age. Her love for the arts flourished through her upbringing and frequent travels to Hungary as a child. Living in Hungary for more than two decades made her appreciate the many aspects of Hungarian culture, arts and architecture, and fueled her passion for the preservation and restoration of the cultural richness inside and outside of the borders of Hungary. She has strong ties to Hungary through her family, friends and the Hungarian community in the San Francisco Bay Area, where she currently lives.
STEVEN KOVÁCS
Steven Kovács is a writer-director-producer of the feature films, ’68 and Angel Blue, in addition to several short films. He received an Oscar nomination for his documentary Arthur and Lillie. As chief of production of Roger Corman’s New World Pictures, he oversaw the making of Deathsport, Avalanche, Up From the Depths, Saint Jack and The Lady in Red. He produced José Luis Borau’s film On the Line.
Steve has been a professor of film at Stanford University and San Francisco State University, and has taught screenwriting and directing at the Hungarian Academy for Theater, Film and Television as a Fulbright lecturer. He is the author of the book, From Enchantment to Rage: The Story of Surrealist Cinema, and articles on film, politics and the arts. He has also written fiction, poetry and translations of the poems of Miklós Radnóti and Mihály Babits.
WILMA PARKER DE PAVLOFF
Career artist Wilma Parker de Pavloff is a graduate of the Rhode Island School of Design and the Art Institute of Chicago. Her work is collected in fourteen museums. She was selected by the U.S. Navy to create the Naval Air Station, Alameda, base-closure painting, NAS Alameda. A member of Tailhook, she currently paints for the Blues and Royals, a cavalry regiment of the British Army, and is collected at the Household Cavalry Archive Museum, Windsor, UK.
Wilma has volunteered as a citizen advisor to the San Francisco Redevelopment Agency, acting as chair of the Plan Amendment Committee for her SoMa (South of Market) neighborhood. She has served as a docent at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art and at the Haas-Lilienthal House. She is a past trustee of the Rhode Island School of Design.
The daughter of an architect, Wilma continues to work out of her central SoMa historic Dray Horse Stable studio, and paints summers at the Mashomack Polo Club meets, Pine Plains, NY, and from her Casa Sara studio on Vieques, Puerto Rico. (www.wilmaparker.com)
PETER SZABADI
Peter Szabadi, Esq., has been closely involved with the work of the Hungaria Nostra Foundation from its inception, and serves as corporate secretary for Hungaria Nostra of Los Angeles, Inc.
Peter was born in Budapest, Hungary, and immigrated with his family to the United States at the age of 14, as a consequence of the Hungarian Revolution. He has lived in New York City, San Francisco and Los Angeles, with extended sojourns to Italy. He became a lawyer in 1967 in New York and in San Francisco in 1971. His litigation practice has been primarily in the fields of civil rights and labor law. He earned a second degree in archaeology at UC Berkeley.
With his wife, Michele Marsh, Peter lives in Idyllwild, California, balancing his legal work with his love of travel and the arts and photography. He studied photography with Richard Misrach in San Francisco, an influential social and landscape photographer in the 1980s.
DITTA TAHY
Ditta Tahy was born in Kaposvár, Hungary. She graduated in media studies and Hungarian literature and grammar at Pázmány Péter Catholic University, and completed Turkish studies at Eötvös Lorand University. She started her career as a journalist in Budapest, then worked as a Hungarian teacher in the Hungarian Cultural Institute in Istanbul, where she also worked with Hungarian children living in the diaspora. Ditta is currently employed at the Hungarian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade, where she deals with Hungarian-Turkish relations.
She is interested in different cultures, and in her free time, she travels the world with her family and takes advantage of Budapest’s vibrant cultural life, including the theater, museums, and concerts. Whenever she can, Ditta visits Lake Balaton to explore the cultural and natural sights around the lake.
SOFIYA URBÁN
Sofiya Urbán graduated with a bachelor of arts degree in photography from Moholy-Nagy University of Art and Design (MOME) in Budapest in 2015. She went on to study film and video, earning an MA in media design. Sofiya has worked in the fashion industry as a stylist and photographer’s assistant, and as deputy editor-in-chief at Nero Journal (Nero homme at the time). She was a trainee in the set decoration department at Pioneer Picture Production, where she was an assistant set director on films and commercials. Sofiya has worked at Bergx2, Continental Tobacco Group, Eleven Australia and Ashanti Cosmetics, and as a graphic designer on a Netflix series. She is currently directing a short film.
MOLLY WALKER
Molly A. Walker is a writer and editor and fourth-generation Californian, growing up with strong ties to both ranching and journalism in the San Francisco East Bay. Following graduation from UC Berkeley, she was a reporter for the Pleasanton Times weekly. She edited trade magazines and worked on the communications/public relations teams of several corporations before establishing her own communication consulting practice, Walker Communications, in 1999. Her clients have included public and private businesses, unified and community college districts, nonprofits, filmmakers and authors.
Molly was a longtime volunteer leader in the International Association of Business Communicators, and served as San Francisco chapter president and IABC Pacific Plains Region lead chapter advocate. She is a board member and past chair of the San Francisco Public Relations Round Table.