The Christ Trilogy: National Gallery

Munkácsy: The Christ Trilolgy
Munkácsy: The Christ Trilolgy

The name of the newest temporary exhibition in the Hungarian National Gallery is named: “Munkácsy: The Christ Trilogy”. This is a brilliant exhibition showing some of the best known and most beautiful paintings made by any Hungarian painter throughout history. During the preparations for the exhibtion there were some problems getting the giant paintings into the National Gallery, and one of the paintings was almost destroyed when the crane carrying it into the gallery fell over and destroyed a car as it tried to lift the painting into the museum. Fortunately the painting survived without a scrath!

This exhibtion will for sure be a big hit, and one we can warmly recommend everyone. Check it out!

Munkácsy: The Christ Trilogy
National Gallery
November 23, 2010 – April 30, 2011

Budapest museums

Press release:
Mihály Munkácsy undoubtedly reached the pinnacle of his career with The Christ Trilogy, even though the three paintings were only exhibited for the first time together almost 100 years after his death. When Munkácsy started to paint Christ before Pilate (Krisztus Pilátus előtt), in the summer of 1880, he was already working with one of the most successful art-dealers in Paris, Charles Sedelmeyer.

Sedelmeyer’s ambition to make Munkácsy known worldwide proved to be successful. It was he who regularly organised international exhibitions for Munkácsy’s newest works, and negotiated the sale of both commercial and reproductive rights of the paintings. Therefore the big Christ painting became thecentre of the international attention even before its completion. After showing in Paris, England and Vienna, it was exhibited in Budapest at the beginning of 1882 when over 80 thousand people went to see it.

Munkácsy had already made drafts for a new Christ painting in 1881. The interesting thing about Golgotha was that it was finished by 1884, and the artist modelled the crucified Saviour after himself. We know this from contemporary photos, where the Marquis de Susa took a snap shot of the ‘crucified’ Munkácsy. The exhibition of Golgotha in Paris, Budapest and England attracted hundreds of thousands of people, just like the exhibition of the first Christ painting. The third picture of the trilogy was expected by most people to be a Resurrection scene, however Munkácsy was too busy with new orders throughout the 1880s.In 1895 he painted the altarpiece of the Andrássy Mausoleum in Tőketerebes (in current day Slovakia), on the basis of the central motif of Golgotha, but by this time his creative power had become very weak. Fighting illness, the artist completed the third part of the trilogy, Ecce Homo.

Despite the religious nature of Munkácsy’s Christ paintings, it would be difficult to imagine them as altarpieces, and instead they should be considered as socio-cultural genre compositions. The public was mesmerized by the enormous size, the hype surrounding their exhibition and the nature of the biblical events depicted. The secret to the works’ religious radiance is that Munkácsy brought the Saviour within touching distance, and drew the public into Christ’s story of suffering. He created a modern picture of Christ, that was tailored to the demands of the modern man searching for new forms of stimulation. Munkácsy provided bothreligious experience and mental pleasure. Even today, when competing with all sorts of multimedia, the paintings still have a strong effect on the onlooker.

The first two parts of the trilogy were bought by John Wanamaker during Munkácsy’s 1886-87 trip to the United States, and the paintings were almost permanently exhibited in his department store in Philadelphia. The works left the Wanamaker family’s ownership in 1988 and are now owned by a Canadian and an American-Hungarian. Ecce Homo was bought by Frigyes Déri in 1914, who then donated it to the Déri Museum of Debrecen in 1930, which he founded himself. The three paintings were exhibited together for the first time in 1995 when the first two parts of the trilogy came to the museum on loan. While the Déri Museum is being renovated, the National Gallery is giving a home to the trilogy where for the first time the main compositions are accompanied by drafts,studies and smaller sized versions.

A Collection Within the Collection: National Gallery

“A collection within the collection” is an interesting exhibition about prints, posters and drawings in the Hungarian National Gallery. More information can be found below if you read the press release.

A Collection Within the Collection
National Gallery
June 15, 2010 – February 13, 2011

Budapest museums

Press release:
As for the number of items contained, the department of drawings and prints holds the largest collection in the Hungarian National Gallery. However, the significance of prints and drawings is less well known, as paper-based objects are very sensitive and cannot be included in the permanent exhibition. The array of cabinets with prints and drawings has, for five consecutive years now, represented an effort to change this, showing a constantly renewed selection to accompany the permanent exhibition of twentieth-century paintings and statues. Collections of posters in Budapest museums, including the Hungarian National Gallery, have recently started to come to the forefront. Being on the borderline between drawing and printing and held partly in the collection of drawings and partly in that of posters, poster and book designs continue to remain hidden treasures, a hidden ‘collection within the collection’, as it were. In 2010, two of our exhibitions will feature graphic design: illustrations will be on display at the show of Félicien Rops’ art to be opened in September, while an exhibition of modern Hungarian commercial posters dating from the inter-war period, currently housed in the National Széchényi Library, will be opened in October. The program of the year 2010 has provided the stimulus for us to compile the content of the graphic cabinets including graphic design (i.e. book and commercial design) works from the collection of drawings and prints in the Hungarian National Gallery.

A retrospective show: National Gallery

György Kovásznai, a retrospective show
György Kovásznai, a retrospective show
“György Kovásznai, a retrospective show” is the name of a temporary exhibition in the National Gallery opened June 4th, 2010. The exhibition can be enjoyed until September 26th. If you want to check it out, just use the funicular to reach the Castle hill, and enter into the National Gallery.

György Kovásznai, a retrospective show
National Gallery
June 4 – September 26

Museums of Budapest

Press release:
Kovásznai’s resolute personality laden with a strong calling for the arts was soon to manifest when, at the age of fourteen he announced his family his intention to become a painter at all costs. “The curse-mannerism is something deeply foreign to art.” In retrospect, he thought much positively about the free school run by Piroska Szántó and Jenő Béres, considering their work as a true art pedagogical achievement. “Later on, throughout many years, I was in vain looking for the same charm in my other masters, the Hungarian art practice was characterised by some crossness, mordancy, savage self-destruction, grieving smothered in pipe-smoke.” Between 1950 and 1952, he spent two inspiring years eagerly preparing for the artistic path at the Art High School. The talented classmates are by now acknowledged Hungarian artists: Ilona Keserü, János Major, József Bartl.

“Amidst the most rigorous political surveillance thrived the most incredible artistic and pedagogical dilettantism.” – the artist recalls the times spent at the Art Academy (1952-1957).

During the Stalinist dictatorship, not only the Academy, but also the art scene in general, was expected to serve the prevalent propaganda art under the banner of socialist realism. This is how he reminisced about these experiences two decades later. “The masters enjoyed a total autocracy, although – with all due respect to the exceptions – they were unworthy of any professional title.”

In 1954, his constant confrontations lead him to go away and work in mines (more information about this in room No.2.) In May of 1955, he approached Aurél Bernáth to help him enter the third year of studies. “My practice, memories, and my unchanging determination call for this specific genre of expression.” At the end of his fourth year, shortly before graduation, in the summer of 1957, he was thrown out of school due to unsatisfactory marks.

Depero, futurism and more: National Gallery

Depero the Futurist and the Impact of Futurism on Avant-Garde Art
Depero the Futurist and the Impact of Futurism on Avant-Garde Art

The Hungarian National Gallery, located in the Castle of Buda, opened a new temporary exhibition June 4th named: “Depero the Futurist and the Impact of Futurism on Avant-Garde Art.” If this sounds interesting, you better head of to the National Gallery where the exhibition is available between June 4th and August 22nd. More information about the exhibition can be found in the press release further down.

Depero the Futurist and the Impact of Futurism on Avant-Garde Art
National Gallery
June 4th – August 22

Museums in Budapest

Press release:
A joint exhibition of the Museo di Arte Moderna e Contemporanea di Trento e Rovereto and the Hungarian National Gallery with the sponsorship and cooperation of the Italian Embassy in Hungary and the Italian Cultural Institute in Budapest, under the Patronage of the Presidents of the Italian Republic and the Republic of Hungary, His Excellency Giorgio Napolitano and His Excellency László Sólyom under the auspices of the Honorable Sandro Bondi, Minister of Cultural Heritage and Activities of the Italian Republic.

The year 2009 marked the 100th anniversary of Futurism, with a number of Futurist exhibitions held in various countries. Over the past twenty years there has been growing interest in the art of versatile Futurist painter Fortunato Depero (1892-1960), an ardent follower of Marinetti’s aesthetics. The over 100 works displayed at the Budapest show are on loan from the Museo Fortunato Depero, Rovereto, an integral part of MART, where the collection of works left by the artist to the town is housed. Living in Austrian-controlled Rovereto until 1918, Depero was in fact raised in a Central European milieu. His artistic development was influenced by Symbolism and Expressionism, and also by the schools of Jugendstil and Wiener Werkstätte. During his trip to Rome he established contact with important Futurist painters such as Boccioni, Balla, Prampolini and Marinetti. His Futurist principles were summarized in the manifesto Ricostruzione futurista dell’universo (Futurist Reconstruction of the Universe), co-authored with Giacomo Balla in 1915, proclaiming the re-creation of the universe and the extension of art to all areas of life. Through his Futurist formal experiments he envisaged mobile sculptured constructions utilising the combined impact of movement and sound effects.

In Rome, after making the acquaintance of Sergei Diaghilev and his Ballets Russes, Depero designed costumes and stage sets for Igor Stravinsky’s Le Chant du Rossignol (The Song of the Nightingale) and for Balli Plastici (Plastic Dances), a picto-plastic drama co-authored with Gilbert Clavel. Between 1916 and 1919, he left off his abstract art experimentations and went on to work towards a new iconography arising from the world of magic and fantasy. Populating his metaphysical and surreal visions with unique shapes brought to life in his pictures, Depero created a kind of meta-reality.

In the autumn of 1919 he opened his studio-workshop called Casa d’Arte Futurista Depero in Rovereto, where, based on his designs, particularly impressive, decorative tapestries, textiles, furniture, toys and graphic design works were produced. In 1929 he founded another Futurist House in New York where he continued his career as a designer. He undertook significant design commissions for the Italian company Campary, the magazines Vanity Fair and Vogue, and Roxy Theater (advertisement and stage sets). He returned to Italy in October 1930. The paintings he did in that period were inpsired by his American experience, featuring urban motifs, skyscrapers, subways, and mechanical parts as visual elements. After the war he lived in the United States for a while again, but received no more commissions. In 1959 he designed and built the first museum of Italian Futurism, the Museo Fortunato Depero which, completely refurbished as one of MART’s venues, was reopened to celebrate the centenary of Futurism. Depero died in 1960. He left all his works to the town of Rovereto.

Modern Hungarian Lithography: National Gallery

The exhibition named Modern Hungarian Lithography can be seen in the Hungarian National Gallery between April 5th and June 30, 2010. Here the visitor can see the how this has been used in modern Hungary. What is lithography? According to Wikipedia it is “a method for printing  using a stone or a metal plate with a completely smooth surface. Invented in 1796 by Bavarian author Alois Senefelder as a low-cost method of publishing theatrical works, lithography can be used to print text or artwork onto paper or another suitable material.”

Modern Hungarian Lithography
Hungarian National Gallery
April 5 – June 30

Museums in Budapest

Late baroque impressions: Hungarian National Gallery

Franz Anton Maulbertsch

A new exhibition is coming to the Hungarian National Gallery opening November 20 and lasting until February 28, 2010. In the exhibition we will meet with the work of Franz Anton Maulbertsch (1724-1796) and Josef Winterhalder (1743-1807).

Late baroque impressions
Hungarian National Gallery
November 20, 2009 – February 28, 2010

Museums in Budapest

Munich, in Hungarian: Hungarian National Gallery

In the period between 1850 and 1914 almost every Hungarian artist spent time in Munich. They went there to receive teaching and inspiration not available in Hungary. In this exhibition the visitors will see what characterize the paintings of that time, and how this influenced the Hungarian painters staying there for months, years or decades.

Munich – in Hungarian
Hungarian National Gallery
October 1 (2009) – January 10 (2010)

Munich in Hungarian - Hungarian National Gallery

József Borsos exhibition in National Gallery

József Borsos (1821-1883, Painter and Photographer )
Exhibition, Hungarian National Gallery, June 18 – October 25, 2009

Jóseph Borsos exhibition - National Gallery of Hungary

József Boros was one of the best Hungarian painters in the 19th century, yet a mysterious one as well. Not to much information has remained about him from his life. He wasnt only painting, but he was also a photographer taking more than 44,000 pictures during his career as a photographer.

József lived in Vienna as well, and in the exhibition paintings can be found from that period as well, making it possible to compare the paintings from his time in Austria and his time in Hungary.

Paintings have been borrowed to the Hungarian National Gallery from private and public collections.