The painter and writer Helga Schaefer-Matyi was born in Szombathely in 1918. In 1938 she accompanied her father, the painter Paul Schmidtbauer, to London, from where she planned to emigrate to the USA or Africa. However, these plans were not implemented and the artist later lived in various German cities and, from 1982, in Graz. In 1943 the artist was a founding member of the passive resistance group Fata Morgana. After WWII she was a member of the Munich writers' association Seerosenkreis and the Marburger Kreis. In 1974 she received the silver medal of honor from the city of Graz.