From the Paris of the Hungarian Great Plain to New York and back
Imre Nagy, art historian, director of the János Tornyai Museum in Hódmezővásárhely
MúzeumCafé 43.
In the late 1990s he left Hódmezővásárhely for Szeged for ten years, then returned in 2007, since when he has headed the János Tornyai Museum and Education Centre. This year his directorship was extended for a further five years. In recent times the museum has witnessed many changes. It has grown with the addition of several branch institutes, giving rise to new challenges. One aim was to make the small town nationally well-known and to attract many visitors. Tenders, plans and exciting exhibitions were the answer. In February he received the ‘For the Cultural Development of Csongrád County’ award for his work for both the town and the county, acknowledging his activity as a museologist for thirty years. His academic research concerns North America’s Cheyenne Indians. Imre Nagy was born in Békéscsaba in 1955. He gained a teaching diploma in arts and geography at the Gyula Juhász Teachers’ Training College in Szeged, then studied art history at ELTE university in Budapest. In 1977 he gained a Ph.D in ethnography. He began working as a museologist and art historian at the János Tornyai Museum in Hódmezővásárhely, and was its director from 1991 to 1999. Then he was appointed scientific director of Csongrád County Museum’s board of management, and from 2003 he headed the Ferenc Móra Museum’s Fine Arts Department in Szeged. In 2007 he again became director of the János Tornyai Museum and he was reappointed this year. His main field of research as an art historian is contemporary Hungarian fine arts and he has written extensively on the theme for various professional journals. In addition, he researches the art of the Indians of the Great Plains in North America.