Museum of Fine Arts (Budapest)
Established | 1906 |
---|---|
Location | Heroes' Square, Budapest |
Coordinates | 47°30′57.132″N 19°4′36.408″E / 47.51587000°N 19.07678000°E |
Type | Art museum |
Collection size | 100,000 |
Director | László Baán |
Architect | Albert Schickedanz and Fülöp Herzog |
Website | www |
The Museum of Fine Arts (
It was built by the plans of
Collection and exhibits
Ancient Egyptian art
The gallery holds the second largest collection of Egyptian art in central Europe.[citation needed] It comprises a number of collections bought together by Hungarian Egyptologist, Eduard Mahler, in the 1930s. Subsequent digs in Egypt have expanded the collection. Some of the most interesting pieces are the painted mummy sarcophagi.
Classical antiquities
The core of the collection was made up of pieces acquired from Paul Arndt, a classicist from Munich. The exhibition mainly includes works from Ancient Greece and Rome. Most significant is the 3rd century marble statue called the Budapest dancer. The Cyprean and Mycenaean collection is also notable, also the ceramics and bronzes.
Old master paintings (13th to 18th centuries)
The 3000 paintings in the collection offer an almost uninterrupted survey of the development of European painting from the 13th to the late 18th centuries. The core of the collection is constituted by the 700 paintings acquired from the Esterhazy estate. The collection is split up into Italian, German, Dutch, Flemish, French, English and Spanish art. The most important works include
Old sculpture
The collection's main section is devoted to pieces from the Middle Ages to the 17th century. It was based on the Italian collection of Karoly Pulszky and Istvan Ferenczy's bronze collections. From the latter came one of the most treasured works, the small equestrian by Leonardo da Vinci. A number of painted wooden sculptures feature in the German and Austrian section.
Drawings and prints
The collection shows selected rotating exhibitions of its collection of 10,000 drawings and 100,000 prints originating mainly from the Esterhazy, Istvan Delhaes and Pal Majovsky acquisitions. All periods of European graphic art are represented. Important pieces include two studies by Leonardo da Vinci for the Battle of Anghiari, 15 drawings by Rembrandt, 200 pieces by Goya, and French aquatints.
Art after 1800
The museum's collection of 19th- and 20th-century art is less significant than those found in other departments; it is a younger collection. The bulk of the painting is from the Biedermeier period and French art. From the latter are representatives of the Romantic period (Eugène Delacroix), the Barbizon school (Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot, Gustave Courbet) and Impressionism (Édouard Manet, Claude Monet, Camille Pissarro, Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec). There is a large collection of sculptures by Auguste Rodin and Constantin Meunier.
Vasarely Museum
Hungarian artist, Victor Vasarely, donated a significant collection of his works to the gallery. These have found a permanent home outside the walls of the gallery at the Zichy mansion in Óbuda. The two-storey wing of the building is known as the Vasarely Museum and is the only one of its kind in eastern Europe.
Directors of the museum
- 1906–1914 Ernő Kammerer
- 1914–1935 Elek Petrovics
- 1935–1944 Dénes Csánky
- 1949–1952 Imre Oltványi
- 1952–1955 Ferenc Redő
- 1956–1964 Andor Pigler
- 1964–1984 Klára Garas
- 1984–1989 Ferenc Merényi
- 1989–2004 Miklós Mojzer
- 2004– László Baán
Budapest Museum Quarter project
This section needs to be updated.(November 2023) |
In 2008, the director of the Museum of Fine Arts, László Baán, proposed the merging of his museum with that of the
In September 2011, Secretary of State for Culture
In early December 2011, Ferenc Csák, director of the Hungarian National Gallery since 2010 and critical of the proposed merger of the gallery with the Museum of Fine Arts, called the merge process "[v]ery unprofessional, anti–democratic and short–sighted" and announced that he would resign at the end of 2011.[5] As of 5 March 2012[update], a new director had not been named and the Hungarian National Gallery was being led by Deputy General Director, György Szűcs.[6]
See also
Hungarian art |
---|
List of Hungarian painters |
List of Hungarian sculptors |
Hungarian National Gallery |
Museum of Fine Arts |
- Budapest Kunsthalle (Palace of Art) — contemporary art museum across the square.
- Hungarian National Gallery
- List of museums in Hungary
- List of largest art museums
- Museums in Budapest
References
- ^ Mélyi, József (3 November 2010). "Notes for a Budapest Museum Master Plan". Art Margins Online. Archived from the original on 27 June 2011. Retrieved 2 February 2012.
- ^ Unwin, Richard (3 August 2011). "Budapest director's double vision for national museum". The Art Newspaper. Archived from the original on 12 January 2012. Retrieved 4 August 2016.
- ^ MTI (3 October 2011). "Government commissioner appointed for planned "museum quarter" in Budapest". Realdeal.hu. Archived from the original on 6 October 2011. Retrieved 4 August 2016.
- ^ Földes, András (15 September 2011). "Houdini-cirkusz es fiákerek az Andrássyn" [Houdini Circus and wheels on Andrássy]. Index. Retrieved 30 May 2022.
- ^ Unwin, Richard (7 December 2011). "Hungarian national gallery director resigns in protest". The Art Newspaper. Archived from the original on 27 March 2012. Retrieved 4 August 2016.
- ^ "Contact". Hungarian National Gallery. Archived from the original on 28 February 2012. Retrieved 5 March 2012.
Further reading
- Van Dyke, John Charles (1914). Vienna, Budapest: critical notes on the Imperial Gallery and Budapest Museum. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons. OL 23356514M.
- Garas, Klára, ed. (1988). The Budapest Museum of Fine Arts. Corvina. ISBN 978-9-6313-4328-1.
- Urbach, Susan; Varga, Agota; Fay, Andras (November 30, 2015). "Early Netherlandish Painting in Budapest". Distinguished Contributions to the Study of the Arts in the Burgundian Netherlands. Vol. I. Trunhout: Harvey Miller. ISBN 978-1-909400-09-2.
- Urbach, Susan; Varga, Agota; Fay, Andras (November 30, 2015). "Early Netherlandish Painting in Budapest". Distinguished Contributions to the Study of the Arts in the Burgundian Netherlands. Vol. II. Trunhout: Harvey Miller. ISBN 978-1-909400-29-0.
External links
- (in English) Museum website
- (in English) Museum.hu information
- Aerial photographs of the museum
- Virtual tour of the Museum of Fine Arts (Budapest) provided by Google Arts & Culture
- Media related to Budapest Museum of Fine Arts at Wikimedia Commons