Visitors to the exhibition will see two of the painter?s most famous paintings as they enter: ?Self Portrait With Pipe? and ?Peasant Woman With White Bonnet?. At the end of the exhibition space, Van Gogh?s ?Windmill at Gennep? will be on display. The paintings will be shown in three of the museum?s halls.
Visitors will enter the space through a bullet-proof glass gate, in place for security reasons as well as to control the climate in the space.
The exhibition will be the most expensive ever in Hungary, costing HUF 400 million to organise, said Museum of Fine Arts Director László Baán. The paintings on display have been insured for more than HUF 150bn, he added.
Exhibition curator Judit Geskó said the collection of Van Gogh?s works spanning his entire career is intended to show a better picture of the artist himself ? not a self-possessed painting genius, but a skilled craftsman whose knowledge of artistic tradition is evident in his work, she added.
More famous works in the exhibition will be placed next to lesser known, but still extraordinary works, Geskó said. The exhibition will feature 43 paintings, 24 drawings and 10 lithographs and etchings made between 1881 and 1890.
The exhibition places great emphasis on the first phase of Van Gogh?s career in the Netherlands. Among the darker-toned pictures of the period, visitors can see Van Gogh?s weaver series made in Nuenen, as well as his series of peasants and women.
?Sewing Woman?, painted in Etten in 1881, and ?Two Cut Sunflowers? are among the other famous works in the exhibition.
Once again, Van Gogh?s works made in Paris can be seen together. They include ?Pair of Leather Shoes?, painted in 1889, along with several still-lifes and landscapes.
In addition to the paintings, the exhibition will include two dozen of Van Gogh?s Japanese woodcuts from Hungarian collections.
The exhibition will also show works by artists who inspired Van Gogh, such as Rembrandt, Delacroix, Daubigny and Millet, as well as works created by Hungarian artists, such as Tivadar Kosztka Csontváry and Mihály Munkácsy, in the same spirit as Van Gogh.
Budapest?s Museum of Fine Arts is celebrating its centenary with the exhibition of Van Gogh paintings the like of which has not been seen in the region for more than a hundred years.
More than 40 museums, including Amsterdam?s Van Gogh Musuem, the Musée D'Orsay in Paris and the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York are lending works for the exhibition.
Tickets for the exhibition went on sale on November 2, and 20,000 have already been sold.
A 600-page catalogue of the exhibition will be published in English and Hungarian.
The exhibition will run until March 20, 2007.
Source: Múlt-kor
