“I’ve always put my foot a bit more inside”
Art historian Ferenc Romváry on Csontváry and the history of the Pécs Picture Gallery
MúzeumCafé 50.
Where is TivadarKosztkaCsontváry’s rightful place in art history and in galleries? Has his oeuvre been fully researched and can his works be seen? Art discourse is full of these questions these days as his works are being exhibited in Budapest. Thus it stands to reason to talk about Csontváry with Romváry, the person who played an important role in the artist’s works getting a permanent home in Pécs, while he also took part in establishing Museum Street there and extending the collection of the Modern Hunga-rian Picture Gallery. Romváry admits he would not have been able to do all that without people with the necessary political influence as well as an appreciation of cultural matters. Today all this is history, but it was the present in the 1960s when a Zsolnay who experienced the golden age of the family dynasty was working on exhibitions and when LajosNémeth was first able to look at Csontváry’s works, when FerencMartyn was battling with ex-miners trained as socialist realist painters and when the museum in Pécs agreed with GedeonGerlóczy about the transfer of the artworks after many draft agreements. As a trainee at the Hungarian National Gallery he accompanied Németh to the storerooms in 1962–63 and he also examined Csontváry’s works. Then he moved to Pécs as Hungary’s only art historian working in a provincial museum. The exhibition Movement, staged in 1970, was regarded as revolutionary and is considered the first official neo-Avant-garde exhibition held in a museum. Pécs was under Aczél’s protection and those in leading positions in the town felt that there could be no big problem due to that exhibition. There was always a small gap opening up, where Romváry put his foot a bit more inside