The inventor of the ballpoint pen and the automatic gear confessed about himself as follows: “Painting and invention are not opposite poles of my personality, to the contrary. They originate from the same source. I feel like the same process makes me paint and invent either. The same excitement, the same challenge: to create something…”
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October 24, 2015 – The 30th anniversary of the death of László Bíró.
László Bíró memorial exhibition, which has been open for weeks in the Hungarian pavilion of Expo Milano 2015, can now been visited in National Széchényi Library.
László Bíró was born in 1899. His first commercially successful invention was a washing machine using the energy of the stove, which became a popular household item in the 1930s. At the same time, he invented the automatic gear which he sold to General Motors in Berlin.
In 1936, Bíró invented the electromagnetic transmitting device which was used fifty years later in high-speed Japanese superrails. “I asked him why he had invested in patenting his inventions if he did not plan to have them manufactured or sold. In connection with the railways, he simply said that the world had not yet been prepared for it.” – Mariana Bíró (daughter of László Bíró)
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The ballpoint pen was first patented in Hungary in 1938, after Bíró had met Agustín Pedro Justo, President of Argentina at a reception, at a Yugoslav sea resort. Justo liked the ballpoint pen and he offered his help to start manufacturing it in Argentina. Later this offer helped Bíró get a visa, and in 1940, he and one of his friends, Juan Meyne decided to join the businessmen who financed the manufacturing of the pen in Argentina.
When Bíró sold the rights in the USA and in Europe and also the ballpoint pen manufacturing facility, he started looking for new challenges. If we ask an inventor which one of his inventions is the best, he will answer: the next. This was the case with Bíró, too. His attention was drawn by a lot of things. For example, he patented a procedure to produce phenolic resins; another one for enhancing the strength of steel bars; he invented the inviolable lock; the clinical thermograph and, until his death in 1985, he worked together with the Atomic Energy Commission of Argentina in projects related to the separation of gases in molecular and isotope systems.
[3]In Bíró’s own words: “Why? I don’t know. May it is in my genes. The man does what he has to do, in the order of nature. But an innovator must have a great fantasy, good perceptive capabilities, courage and perseverance. He has to risk a possible failure, because the unknown is always uncertain. One thing is for sure: a real inventor considers failure as a basis for a new challenge, and he has to preserve his personal fantasy, which happens to be his real driving force.”
Entrance fee to the exhibition is HUF 400; it can be visited between November 12, 2015 and February 6, 2016, during the opening hours of the Library. This ticket entitles you to attend any other chamber exhibition in National Széchényi Library.
The exhibition will be opened on November 12, 2015, at 11 a.m. [4]
For more information contact press officer Nóra Piskorán at + 361 22 43 746 or at piskoran.nora@oszk.hu [5]
Montegrappa exhibition – From ballpoint pen to 4 color-changing fountain pen
In the exhibition to be opened in the catalog space, on Floor 7 of National Széchényi Library, we would like to highlight designs by Hungarian designer Gábor Megyeri, whose designs have been realized by the Montegrappa firm. Gábor Megyeri is a young inventor and designer, who has such an innovation in the world of pens as the 4 color-changing fountain pen, a pen no one has ever succeeded inventing. Q1 fountain pen was presented at Basel World 2015 with a huge success. Gábor Megyeri designed several pens for Montegrappa and part of this collection will also be shown at the exhibition.
We are planning further exhibitions, and the aim of this exhibition series is that young people in Hungary should know at least so much about the life and work of László Bíró as young people in Argentina do, for whom László József Bíró has been an exemplar up until present day.
The exhibition was organized by Sándor Rácz, owner of VIKTORIA-R Shop. Our Shop, VIKTORIA-R has been dealing with the sales of pens since 1992. One of our partners, Italian firm Montegrappa has designed the so-called László József Bíró Memorial Pen, in honor of the memory of our great innovator, László József Bíró. Symbolically, the portrait of the world-famous Hungarian inventor was put on a ballpoint pen, namely on the type dubbed FORTUNA.