A model for a nude when dressed

Art historian Mimi Kratochwill on the Kunsthalle’s 40 years

MúzeumCafé 41.

Today, when the position and mission of Budapest’s Kunsthalle must be redefined, it is worth reflecting on the stormy past of the exhibition venue. What is clear is that its identity has perhaps always been somewhat problematic. Regarding exhibitions, it has been ‘omnivorous’, it has mostly been a venue for large-scale exhibitions, though this task has now been taken over by larger museums. However, the story is far more complicated than this – and very few know more about it than Mimi Kratochwill. During her four decades at the Kunsthalle seven directors came and went, yet the position of the institution was mostly unchanged. The ministry determined which exhibitions were to be staged, while art historians and curators organised them as best as they could. Despite this, she fondly remembers her joint work with János Frank, the artists “who kept returning to Hungary” and even the exhibitions of Socialist Realism held in the 1950s. And of course there was Béla Czóbel. Their friendship resulted in quite a few portraits of Mimi, the last large-scale retrospective exhibition during Czóbel’s life, several volumes and documentation that has been collected for decades, without which it would be difficult to stage a proper exhibition of Czóbel’s art or write a monograph. Mimi Kratochwill began her career in the Museum of Ethnography and she was already working at the Kunsthalle when she graduated as an art historian. Earlier she did not have the possibility of attending university for political reasons. She regards the Czóbel retrospective in 1971 as her most important involvement. Czóbel painted many portraits of her, as did others. Vladimir Szabó would have painted her nude, but she did not agree. However, the artist insisted and thus The Painter Dresses Naked Mimi was born.