The Old Masters Gallery – A treasure unknown to many A conversation with art historian Zsuzsa Urbach MúzeumCafé 42. author: Emőke Gréczi An art-loving family, a middle class lifestyle, then a victim of political changes. Nothing was easy. Nothing just fell into her lap. More recognition across the world than in Hungary. In summary, those are the essential elements of the career of Zsuzsa Urbach, former head of the Museum of Fine Arts’ Old Masters Gallery. Due […]
Dreams full of hope following a difficult past The past, present and future of the Hungarian Olympic and Sport Museum MúzeumCafé 42. author: Katica Kocsis The Sport Museum dates from the 1920s, though there were collections and displays of objects relating to sport in the 19th century. Nevertheless, after the 1920 Trianon Treaty cultural policy increased its impact on domestic sport and physical education. It was then that the myth of Hungary as a sporting power was born, the formulation […]
From community centre to digitized collection The Mihály Munkácsy Museum in Békéscsaba MúzeumCafé 42. author: Beatrix Basics In the late 18th century Békés-csaba had a population of almost 10,000 and by the first third of the 19th century it was known as “Europe’s largest village”. Its Mihály Munkácsy Museum is housed in a small, neo-Classical mansion. It was only towards the end of the 19th century that the idea arose of establishing […]
Chinese headwear found in Paris provides inspiration The Centre Pompidou-Metz MúzeumCafé 42. author: Orsolya Radványi, art historian, Museum of Fine Arts, Budapest One of France’s most important showcases of modern and contemporary art, the Centre Pompidou-Metz, is located in Lorraine, near the German and Luxemburg borders. As a significant institute of French cultural life, it functions not as a museum in the legal sense, nor in practice as an exclusively exhibition space. It is much more than […]
“The past lies frozen before us” Libraries as listed monuments in Hungary MúzeumCafé 42. author: Marianna Berényi Wherever you travel in the world you rarely come across the notion of a library as a public monument – apart from Hungary. Naturally, that doesn’t mean that elsewhere there are no similar institutes whose stock and buildings are preserved in their original condition, rather there wasn’t the necessity or demand for such a category […]
Prehistoric feasts washed down by beer Contemporary archaeology and the search for gastronomic traces MúzeumCafé 42. author: Marianna Berényi Rather surprising archaeological news concerning gastronomy and eating habits has recently been announced. This is not the make-believe distortion of the commercial media but a well-based scientific result, despite the fact that remains of food are only very rarely excavated at archaeological sites. The latest research does not stop short with just presenting the excavations […]
After the Award of Excellence, the Brill Museum! Museum of Ethnography’s latest project MúzeumCafé 42. author: Emese Joó, ethnographer, museum education specialist, Museum of Ethnography Over the centuries peddlers and tradesmen have been among the major mediators of culture. In addition to a direct exchange of goods, they have always been active in spreading information, taking the latest news directly to the people. Could a museum educational project or the Museum of Ethnography perhaps be sold better by ‘peddling’? Most […]
Museum, library, community centre Institutional fusions after abolishing the county museum system MúzeumCafé 42. author: Beatrix Basics What happened to institutes that used to belong to organisations which continue to operate as local museums again funded by a locality. Yet returning to local funding bodies can be put in inverted commas, many of those museums, collections or their exhibitions did not organically connect with the places where they were established. In Hungary […]
Seuso Treasure now in the focus of science All-embracing research may prove the origin of the objects MúzeumCafé 42. author: Archaeologists Zsolt Mráv, Hungarian National Museum, and Marianna Dági, Museum of Fine Arts For more than three months in the parliament building everyone interested could, without charge, view items of the Seuso Treasure brought to Hungary at the end of March, namely seven superlative late Roman silver vessels and the copper cauldron used to hold hide them were on display there. Now attention is turning to the fate […]
What kind of professional perspectives should be applied to the large-scale exhibition of Transylvanian art planned by the Hungarian National Gallery? Milyen szakmai szempontokat kell ehhez számba venni? MúzeumCafé 42. György Szücs, art historian, deputy director of the Museum of Fine Arts – Hungarian National Gallery, curator of the exhibition: Zoltán Banner’s Transylvanian Hungarian Art in the 20th Century was published in Budapest in 1990. For the first time, it aimed to deal with the development of fine arts in the given region and tried […]