The Hungarian National Gallery is where Hungary’s visual art story unfolds—comprehensive, lively, and very much alive. Beyond its permanent and temporary exhibitions, it’s a hub for guided tours in multiple languages, themed programs, family days, festivals, concerts, creative workshops, art education sessions, and summer camps for kids. February 2026 brings a busy calendar across Budapest and online, with a special spotlight on Lajos Tihanyi and Adolf Fényes.
Online and On-Site: Tihanyi Up Close
February 3 opens with an online guided tour of the Tihanyi exhibition—see it from home and dive into Lajos Tihanyi’s bold color language and restless mind. On February 5, art manager Nóra Winkler and art historian Tünde Topor team up for a joint tour, Lajos Tihanyi, the Restless Charmer, exploring the artist’s persona and practice. Two days later, on February 6, writer and art historian Rita Halász traces Budapest–Berlin–Paris: Tihanyi’s Road to Abstraction, following the café culture, Berlin avant-garde, and Parisian modernism that shaped his evolution from figuration to the pure language of color and form.
On February 8, there’s a French-language tour, Budapest–Berlin–Paris. L’art de Lajos Tihanyi. English speakers get their turn on February 13 with Rebellious Forms, Bold Colors – The Art of Lajos Tihanyi, while Italian guests can explore Hungarian masterpieces the same day on Visita guidata in italiano, spanning medieval to modern highlights—with a playful promise that Dante might appear among the canvases.
Rebellious Forms, Bold Colors: A Major Tihanyi Retrospective
All month long—February 7, 8, 11, and 12—the Gallery celebrates the 140th anniversary of Tihanyi’s birth with a special career-spanning exhibition. Expect key paintings, works on paper, and personal objects. Deaf from childhood, Tihanyi forged color and form from silence, building a distinctive visual language without academic training. He became a standout voice of the Nyolcak (The Eight) and one of the most original figures in 20th-century Hungarian painting. Multiple guided tours offer fresh angles on his life and influence.
Adolf Fényes: Quiet Images, Lasting Impact
Adolf Fényes steps into focus with The Images of Silence (A csend képei). Adolf Fényes (1867–1945), paired with related works from the permanent collection. Guided tours run February 7 and 21, with an online tour on February 10 for those joining remotely. On February 15, curator Ágnes Horváth leads a special curatorial walkthrough, unpacking Fényes’s restrained power and luminous realism.
The Human Body, From Nude Sculptures to Love Stories
Mama, Look! – The Beauty of the Human Body runs on February 5 and 12, exploring how depictions of the human body—especially the nude—mirror each era’s ideals, anchored by the refreshed Nude Sculptures from the Turn of the Century exhibition. The English-language Look at That, Mom! on February 19 offers the same thematic dive for international visitors. On February 22, Nude Sculptures from the Turn of the Century (Aktszobrok a századfordulóról) invites visitors to tour the renewed 19th–20th-century nude sculpture display.
February 14 leans into Valentine’s Day with The Most Beautiful Hungarian Love Paintings (A legszebb magyar szerelmes festmények), a tour tracing artists and their muses—expect passion and tragedy with works by masters like Pál Szinyei Merse, János Vaszary, and Róbert Berény. Also on the 14th: Love Is in the Air, a lively English-language program charting the greatest and most tragic love stories in the collection, and a musical guided tour through Tihanyi’s world with Ádám Bősze and Gábor Bellák, pairing the pulse of Budapest, Berlin, and Paris with the early 20th century’s thrum.
Talks, Extras, and Architecture
Art historian Gergely Barki returns on February 14 with an encore lecture: Two or None: Doublings and Gaps in Lajos Tihanyi’s Oeuvre, probing missing links and mirrored works that complicate the artist’s legacy. On February 8, the beloved architectural tour From Crypt to Dome reveals the former royal palace’s secrets—from the Habsburg palatine crypt to the panoramic dome and other hidden corners—alongside the Gallery’s own history and collection.
Kids, Families, and Creative Play
February is stacked with hands-on fun. Color It Anew! museum workshops for kids run on February 4, 11, and 18, using paintings, genre scenes, portraits, and old photos to explore daily life in the past—what people used, wore, played, and dreamed. Inspired by the artworks, kids draw, paint, craft comics, and invent their own stories. On February 10, Toddlers – Venetian Carnival whisks little ones to Italy’s most elegant masked celebration—rides, dancing, role-play, and decorating festive masks.
February 21 brings Adventure in the Gallery – Carnival Transformations, with age-tailored guided tours: 10:30–11:15 for ages 6–9 and 11:30–12:15 for ages 10–13. On February 24, Preschoolers in the Gallery – So Colorful! turns the museum into a playground of discovery: how painters worked, what art reveals, and a post-tour creative workshop. February 7’s Create! – Naked Reality frames the human body from the 19th century to today, ending with hands-on body prints where visitors turn their own limbs into tools and subjects.
One More for the Road
February 10 keeps digital visitors engaged with the online tour of the Fényes exhibition, while February 5 and 12 reprise the body-focused Mama, Look! program. And at month’s end, the recurring Intellectual Fitness event tackles sculpture, love, and mythology with a provocative question: Can a sculpture come alive—and can someone fall in love with a perfectly made work of art?
