TOURING EXHIBITIONS OF THE MUSEUM OF FINE ARTS HUNGARIAN NATIONAL GALLERY, BUDAPEST 2015–2017
2015 Raphael to Schiele. Masterpieces from the Museum of Fine Arts, Budapest Milan, Palazzo Reale, 17 September 2015 – 7 February 2016 The World of Toulouse-Lautrec The Henri Toulouse-Lautrec Collection of the Museum of Fine Arts, Budapest Rome, Museo dell’ Ara Pacis, 3 December 2015 – 8 May 2016 Mantegna, Dürer, Hogarth The Most Beautiful Engravings from the Collection of the Museum of Fine Arts, Budapest Târgu-Mureș (Marosvásárhely), Palace of Culture, 11 December 2015 – 28 February 2016 2016 Masterpieces from Budapest Dürer, Greco, Tiepolo, Manet, Rippl-Rónai… Paris, Musée du Luxembourg, 9 March – 10 July 2016 Vasarely – MultipliCITE Aix-en-Provence, Fondation Vasarely, 16 June – 2 October 2016 Planned exhibition for 2017 Masterworks from Budapest Madrid, Museum Thyssen-Bornemissza, 21 February – 28 May 2017
József Rippl-Rónai, Woman with a BirdCage, 1892
The Treasures from Budapest. European Masterpieces from Leonardo to Schiele at the Royal Academy of Arts, London, held in 2010, was the first occasion when dazzling masterpieces loaned by the Museum of Fine Arts and the Hungarian National Gallery went on show abroad. Tourists visiting Budapest will certainly not miss Heroes’ Square and the impressive building of the Museum of Fine Arts, that opened in 1906 as the home of a comprehensive collection of European art from the late medieval period to modernism. In 1975, Hungarian artworks were transferred from the Museum of Fine Arts to the Hungarian National Gallery’s new location in the Buda Castle, where it is housed until the present day. Its relocation brought the possibility to the expansion of the Hungarian collection. Although the European and Hungarian collections housed in the two museum buildings were already separated in 1957, thanks to the reunification of the two institutions in 2012, the two foremost national art collections can again be viewed in the universal art historical context. On the other hand, masterpieces of Hungarian art, lesser known outside Hungary, can reclaim the place they deserve in the international art canon – this is confirmed by our selections showcasing masterpieces abroad. The comprehensive renovation of the building of the Museum of Fine Arts began in February 2015 with the launch of the Liget Budapest Project. The reconstruction work lasting for three years will mainly include the restoration of the Renaissance Michelangelo Hall, and the captivating Romanesque Hall, which was used as a warehouse after being severely damaged in World War II. The parts of the building that will be renewed within the project represent some 40 percent of the museum’s total space. During the reconstruction period some of the invaluable masterpieces of
the Museum of Fine Arts will embark upon touring exhibitions only to return home after the project is completed. Besides the reconstruction of the museum building, the arrangement of the two institutions’ collections will also be restructured: Hungarian and international art before 1800 will be housed in the Museum of Fine Arts, while works dating after 1800 will be moved to the New National Gallery to be built by 2019 in the heart of the City Park, based on the design by SANAA, an internationally acclaimed architectural firm. The Masterpieces from Budapest exhibition showcases the extraordinary wealth, diversity and artistic quality that distinguish the collections of the Museum of Fine Arts – Hungarian National Gallery, Budapest. Although the texts and images included in this booklet introducing our touring exhibitions of the years between 2015 and 2017 only give a sampler of the artworks preserved in the Budapest museums, they nevertheless provide a great opportunity for visitors to get insight into the history of our collections. I hope that this brochure will bring you the pleasure of genuine discovery! Dr. László Baán General Director Museum of Fine Arts – Hungarian National Gallery, Budapest
Paul Cézanne, The Buffet, 1877
2015 Raphael to Schiele. Masterpieces from the Museum of Fine Arts, Budapest Milan, Palazzo Reale, 17 September 2015 – 7 February 2016
The World of Toulouse-Lautrec The Henri Toulouse-Lautrec Collection of the Museum of Fine Arts, Budapest Rome, Museo dell’ Ara Pacis, 3 December 2015 – 8 May 2016
Mantegna, Dürer, Hogarth The Most Beautiful Engravings from the Collection of the Museum of Fine Arts, Budapest Târgu-Mureș (Marosvásárhely), Palace of Culture, 11 December 2015 – 28 February 2016
Egon Schiele, Two Women Embracing, 1915
Raphael to Schiele. Masterpieces from the Museum of Fine Arts, Budapest Milan, Palazzo Reale, 17 September 2015 – 7 February 2016 Curator: Stefano Zuffi The Milan Expo in 2015 created an excellent opportunity for the Museum of Fine Arts – Hungarian National Gallery, Budapest to show Hungary not only within the framework of the world exposition but also beyond it. The Esterházy collection, which once had belonged to Europe’s most prominent aristocratic collections, was purchased by the Hungarian state in 1870. The fine art objects of the collection are now preserved in the Museum of Fine Arts. The Esterházy collection is an outstandingly important part of the Hungarian cultural heritage. Raphael’s Esterházy Madonna, or masterpieces by sixteenth to eighteenth-century Milanese artists, such as Bernardino Luini, Daniele Crespi and Giacomo Ceruti tell not only the story of Italian art but also that of Hungarian cultural history. Da Raffaello a Schiele: Capolavori del Museo di Belle Arti di Budapest presented a selection comprising all the important periods of pre-modernist European painting through works by Veronese, Titian, Dürer and Goya, among others. The European collection of the Museum of Fine Arts also owns outstanding compositions by El Greco and Velázquez, enchanting Venetian and Florentine townscapes by Canaletto and Bellotto, large-scale compositions by Tiepolo and Sebastiano Ricci, as well as excel-
Albrecht Dürer, Portrait of a Young Man, ca. 1500-1510
Paolo Caliari called Veronese, Portrait of a Man, ca. 1555
lent works by Dutch and Netherlandish painters. The exhibition also featured several of the Hungarian National Gallery’s emblematic masterpieces of Hungarian painting, such as Picnic in May by Pál Szinyei Merse, which encapsulates the natural and carefree joy of a period. Károly Markó, revered as master and model by an entire generation of Italian painters active around 1840–1850, is an outstanding figure of both Italian and Hungarian art history. Mihály Munkácsy’s portrait of Franz Liszt, made of the composer some months before his death, captures the pathos, passion and drama of the music of Romanticism. Once referred to as Mailand, Milan was ruled by the Habsburgs in one period of its history, just like Hungary. Both were part of the same empire, and the influence and culture
The World of Toulouse-Lautrec The Henri Toulouse-Lautrec Collection of the Museum of Fine Arts, Budapest Rome, Museo dell’ Ara Pacis, 3 December 2015 – 8 May 2016 Curators: Zsuzsa Gonda, Kata Bodor
of Milan are far greater than what visitors encounter in the city, the museums and churches. From Saint Ambrose through Leonardo da Vinci to Maria Callas many famous persons, although not born in Milan, gave the city at least as much as they received from it. Budapest in Milan: this large-scale exhibition in one of Europe’s prominent cultural metropolises meant much to Hungarians, too: the public could embark upon a journey of discovery while also feeling the warmth of familiarity.
Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, The Seated Clowness (Mademoiselle Cha-U-Kao), 1896
Francisco José de Goya y Lucientes, Portrait of Manuela Ceán Bermúdez, ca. 1790-1793
Similarly to other prestigious museums of the world, it is also a great honour for the Museum of Fine Arts, Budapest to be able to take an exhibition to Rome. The ‘Eternal City’ is itself like a monumental museum with each one of its stones preserving the memory of century-old stories. Our museum’s Collection of Prints and Drawings put on a solo exhibition of Toulouse-Lautrec’s works on paper. This show is not the collection’s first guest appearance in Rome, since in 2003 it had delighted the public with its seventeenth-century Italian drawings displayed at the exhibition L’Eredità Esterházy in the Istituto nazionale per la grafica. The acquisition of prints and drawings in the museum was especially dynamic in the decade preceding World War I. New works were mainly purchased from preeminent French and German art dealers, who sent modern graphics to be surveyed in Budapest in great numbers. The heads of the collection selected works with exquisite acumen, also including compositions by representatives of the most modern trends. They had purchased a drypoint by Pablo Picasso as early as in 1908, while Henri Matisse’s lithographs showing the inspiration of African sculptures entered
Mantegna, Dürer, Hogarth Târgu-Mureș (Marosvásárhely), Palace of Culture, 11 December 2015 – 28 February 2016 Curators: Szilvia Bodnár, Zsuzsa Gonda
Albrecht Dürer, Adam and Eve, 1504
Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, Jane Avril, 1893
the museum’s collection already in 1913. This was also the period of collecting lithographs by Toulouse-Lautrec, keeping the entire œuvre in mind: the first purchase was made in 1901, the year the artist died. The acquisition gained renewed impetus in 1910–1915, and an internationally notable collection of 240 sheets, that equals about two-thirds of the artist’s complete output of prints, was created over a relatively short time. Included among them are many rarities, such as small-series, or numbered, signed and dedicated pieces.
The exhibition presented eighty-seven engravings selected from the rich collection of the Budapest museum. Visitors could get acquainted with the history of engraving through the works of the most brilliant Italian, German, Netherlandish, French and British masters. The earliest prints shown were engraved in the second half of the fifteenth century by Italian and German masters: Andrea Mantegna, Antonio Pollaiuolo, Martin Schongauer and Israhel van Meckenem. Sixteenth-century German engraving was presented through the works of Albrecht Dürer, with whose activity engraving attained its zenith. In sixteenth-century Netherlands it was Lucas van Leyden, Hendrick Goltzius, Jan Saenredam, Aegidius Sadeler, Jacob Matham and Jan Muller who were regarded the most eminent engravers. Sixteenthcentury Italy was represented before all by Giulio Campagnola, Marcantonio Raimondi and Giorgio Ghisi, whereas French graphic art was shown by the works of Jean Duvet and the members of the Fontainebleau school. Reproductive printmaking was represented by engravings after paintings by Pieter Pauwel Rubens and Antoine Watteau. The exhibition closed with the compositions of the outstanding Englishmaster William Hogarth.
2016 Masterworks from Budapest Dürer, Greco, Tiepolo, Manet, Rippl-Rónai… Paris, Musée du Luxembourg, 9 March – 10 July 2016
Vasarely – MultipliCITE Aix-en-Provence, Fondation Vasarely, 16 June – 2 October 2016
Sándor Bortnyik, The New Adam, 1924
Masterworks from Budapest Dürer, Greco, Tiepolo, Manet, Rippl-Rónai… Paris, Musée du Luxembourg, 9 March – 10 July 2016 Curators: Laurent Salomé, Cécile Maisonneuve Paris has been Europe’s capital of art for centuries, and it has always been seen as such by Hungarian artists and art lovers alike. Paris was a model for artists, art collectors and museums – thus taking our museum’s exhibitions to Paris was always a great challenge as it is now. The museum proudly took the unique opportunity of organising the exhibition Chefs-d’œuvre de Budapest in the Musée du Luxembourg. The show comprehensively presents European and Hungarian art from the late Medieval Period to Modernism. Pinnacles of the show are the masterpieces such as Dürer’s enigmatic Portrait of a Man, the Rearing Horse and Mounted Warrior attributed to Leonardo, Boltraffio’s captivating Virgin and Child, El Greco’s The Penitent Magdalene, Tiepolo’s monumental St James the Greater Conquering the Moors or Goya’s Portrait of the Wife of Juan Agustín Ceán Bermúdez. Some of the most exquisite works from the Hungarian National Gallery, like the sculpture of Saint Dorothy from Košice are memorable examples of Hungarian art history. The French selection from the Budapest museum – including the greatest masters of Impressionism as well as representatives of Symbolism and Post-impressionism – was given the prominent role it deserves.
This rich material is represented in the selection by Millet, Puvis de Chavannes, Rodin, Van Gogh, Monet, Gauguin, Manet, Seurat and Cézanne. These works are engaged in a unique dialogue with the emblematic pieces of Hungarian artworks from the late nineteenth century, such as the fascinating Woman with a Birdcage by József Rippl-Rónai, a Hungarian associate of the Nabis group during his long sojourn in Paris, and Lark by Pál Szinyei Merse, a Hungarian painter working at the time of Impressionism, and an extraordinary, purely symbolist composition by János Vaszary titled Golden Age. Examples of International Symbolism and Expressionism within the collection are represented by Stuck and Böcklin, as well as Kokoschka. Mihály Munkácsy, Yawning Apprentice, 1868–1869
Édouard Manet, Lady with Fan, 1862
the culmination of his œuvre in France, where he conceived and implemented his grand projects embodying his ideas of social art. The Vasarely Museum, affiliated to the Museum of Fine Arts, Budapest, is holding the largest and most comprehensive collection of Victor Vasarely’s body of work outside France.
Vasarely – MultipliCITE Aix-en-Provence, Fondation Vasarely, 16 June – 2 October 2016 Curators: Odile Guichard, Michel Menu, Pierre Vasarely The Vasarely Foundation of France will organize a largescale retrospective exhibition in conjunction with the Vasarely museums of Budapest and Pécs. The show celebrates the 110th anniversary of Victor Vasarely’s birth and the 40th anniversary of the establishment of the Vasarely Foundation of Aix-en-Provence and the Vasarely Museum of Pécs. The exhibition will be hosted at three venues: the Musée Vouland in Avignon, the castle in Gordes, and the Fondation Vasarely in Aix-en-Provence. It will survey Victor Vasarely’s career from the early years in Hungary to
The World of Vasarely: Budapest collection
Victor Vasarely, Tri-Axo, 1972–1976
The museum is located in a former storage building of the grand eighteenth-century Zichy Castle. It was converted into a museum in 1987, after Victor Vasarely (Győző Vásárhelyi) donated a rich selection of his work to the Museum of Fine Arts. The aim of presenting artworks to Hungary was to demonstrate the novelty and progressive character of the international post-World War II geometrical abstract movement. In 1976, Vasarely set up a foundation in his native town Pécs, located in the southern part of Hungary, holding works by himself and his wife Claire (Klára Spinner), as well as by international abstract artists. The permanent exhibition of Vasarely’s works demonstrates his artistic development. The works are presented in chronological order, starting with the years he spent in Hungary in the 1920s through his mature and mostly known period covering his entire career up until the 1980s in France. Vasarely’s visual experiments in the 1950s often reflected on the scholarly research of the period, involving the discoveries of psychology, cybernetics and astrophysics. Vasarely’s work, the Combinations of plastic units led to the birth of a visual alphabet in the second half of the 1960s. He sought to create a new cosmic-scale illusionism evocative of both the endlessness of the galaxy and mankind’s cosmic mission, advocated among others by himself.
The visual alphabet also led to the concept of democratising art, of taking art to every stratum of society. This took form in Vasarely’s programme of Planetary Folklore and subsequently the Utopian plans of the coloured city. In his theoretical work (Plasti-cité, 1970–1975) Vasarely describes modern reproductive techniques as the fundamental form of integrating art into communities. He conceived a coloured city to be built from industrially prefabricated monumental plastic works based on endlessly variable, enlargeable multiples. Intended as a synthesis of art and architecture and an international workshop of analytical visual experimenting, the Museum of the Vasarely Foundation was opened in Aix-en-Provence in 1976.
Dr László Baán General Director
Szilvia Bodnár, Head of the Collection of Prints and Drawings, Museum of Fine Arts Mariann Gergely, Head of the Collection of 19th –20th Century Hungarian Art, Hungarian National Gallery Judit Geskó, Head of the Collection of Art after 1800, Museum of Fine Arts Manga Pattantyús, Head of the Old Hungarian Collection, Hungarian National Gallery Miriam Szőcs, Head of the Collection of Sculpture before 1800, Museum of Fine Arts Júlia Tátrai, Head of the Old Masters Gallery, Museum of Fine Arts Csilla Regős, international exhibitions manager Judit Kata Virág, registrar
Publisher: Dr László Baán Layout: Eszter Balder Print: EPC Nyomda ISBN 978-615-5304-58-3 Victor Vasarely, Kroa-MC, 1969
Front page: Raphael, Esterházy Madonna, ca. 1508 Inner page: Attributed to Leonardo da Vinci, Rearing Horse and Mounted Warrior, early sixteenth century