The series, called "'57 - Fifty-Seven Weeks", will feature presentations of some of the National Gallery's most famous works by the museum's art historians, said Judit Demeter, who is managing the programme of events. The series will also include an exhibition of some of the best examples of restoration carried out by the National Gallery's experts together with documentation of the restoration process. The exhibition of some hundred works will open in March.
An exhibition entitled "Newly Interpreted Tradition" will mark the opening of the Budapest Spring Festival. It will revisit artistic themes and consider the works of past and contemporary artists. In October, the National Gallery will open a retrospective of the works of János Vaszary selected from collections in Hungary and abroad. In December, a retrospective of the works of Mihály Zichy will open. The retrospective will include many pictures on loan from the Hermitage in Saint Petersburg.
The Hungarian National Gallery opened on October 5, 1957, in the building which currently houses the Museum of Ethnography on Kossuth Square. The institution, established to show the works of Hungarian artists, based its collection on modern sculpture and graphic works as well as coins from the Museum of Fine Arts' New Hungarian Collection.
The National Gallery moved to its present location, in the Buda Palace, in 1975. Its collection was also expanded with works from the Museum of Fine Arts' Old Hungarian Collection, which covered the period from the 11th century until the present. Pieces from the collection, which included Gothic paintings and wooden statues, as well as works from the Late Renaissance and Baroque periods, were put on public display at the National Gallery in 1979.
Three years later, in the palace's former throne room, a permanent exhibition of Late Gothic altars and Medieval and Renaissance stonework opened, and in 1989, the Habsburg crypt, on the ground floor of the palace's "C" building, was opened to the public.
Two years ago, the National Gallery expanded its exhibition space in the "A" building of the palace after its former occupant, the Ludwig Museum, moved across the Danube to the Palace of Arts.
Source: Múlt-kor / Hungarian Press Agency (MTI)
