The organisers of the exhibition, entitled ?Van Gogh in Budapest?, presented on Thursday the first of some 80 of Van Gogh?s works to be included in the exhibition. ?Farmhouse in Provence? painted in 1888, is on loan from the National Gallery of Art in Washington D.C. Although the exhibition does not open until December 2, the painting will be on public view at the museum from Friday.
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. Additional works will come from the Museum of Fine Arts? own collection.
Minister of Education and Culture István Hiller said ?Van Gogh in Budapest? would draw more art lovers than almost any other exhibition before. The region has not seen such a comprehensive Van Gogh exhibition for more than a century, he said.
The exhibition is also one of the most valuable ever organised in Hungary. The works in the exhibition are being insured for more than HUF 150bn, Mr Hiller said.
The exhibition will cost HUF 400 million, museum director László Baán said. Most of the expenses will be for security.
Tickets for the exhibition are already available online and at 50 locations around Hungary. The exhibition is being advertised in Vienna and is expected to attract a large number of foreign visitors, Baán said.
The exhibition will be fleshed out with works by other artists who had an effect on Van Gogh or were influenced by him, said curator Judit Geskó. The paintings will include ones by Rembrandt, Delacroix, Daubigny and Millet.
A 600-page catalogue of the exhibition will be published in English and Hungarian.
The exhibition will run until March 20, 2007.
To see an image of ?Farmhouse in Provence?, visit:
http://www.nga.gov/cgi-bin/pimage?51895+0+0
For further infiormation on the exhibition, visit:
http://vangoghbudapesten.mirai.hu/index-eng.html
