KOGART has brought some 60 paintings, close to 300 watercolours, pastels and coal drawings, as well as 600 book illustrations and sketches that show all of the phases of the artist's output.
The works were purchased by the foundation from Csernus's heirs on the condition that they be researched, catalogued and made available to researchers no later than the end of 2011. By the same time, KOGART must organise a large-scale exhibition of some of the pieces.
KOGART also brought to Hungary a large part of the artist's studio, including easels, tables, a sofa, cupboards, brushes, ashtrays, decorations and the CDs and cassettes that he listened to. Csernus's heirs donated the studio's contents to KOGART on the promise the foundation would set up a permanent memorial room to Csernus based on a reconstruction of the studio by the end of 2011.
KOGART aims to open the memorial room already by the end of this September, in the KOGART House on Budapest's tree-lined Andrássy Street. At the same time, KOGART will organise a show of 40-50 works from the biggest private collection of Csernus works, owned by Hubertus von Sulkowski.
By the end of 2011, KOGART will open a special room for researchers, next to the memorial room.
KOGART showed an exhibition of 87 of Csernus's most important paintings in 2006. The foundation already owns about 40 of the artist's works.
