Minister of Health Tamás Székely said it was especially important for the ministry that a place for the institute's valuable collection be found.
The collection was started by the psychiatrist Árpád Selig in the 1920s and contains about a thousand images, most of them spontaneous works created by psychiatric patients.
It was a priority to make the collection accessible for viewing and to researchers, while at the same time following personal data protection laws to the letter, said Székely.
The collection will become the property of MTA and taken over by its Art History Research Institute. The way the collection is handled will be supervised by an international supervisory committee whose members come from many fields of study.
An agreement on taking over the collection was reached with MTA chairman József Pálinkás in the summer. The Ministry of Health awarded the academy a HUF 10 million grant to ensure the transfer.
The images will be brought to the academy's Batthyány Palace, at Teréz krt. 13, and put on display at the end of this year or the beginning of next year, Pálinkás said.
MTA's Art History Research Institute will host an international symposium on art and psychiatry - connected the Hungarian National Gallery's Art Brut exhibition - on the Hungarian Day of Science on November 4, said the institute's director László Beke.
Source: Múlt-kor
