Step inside the Hungarian National Gallery for a series of themed, small-group tours that get up close with medieval icons, avant-garde rebels, and love-soaked masterpieces—plus a refreshed display of fin de siècle nude sculptures. Each program is guided, intimate, and unapologetically personal, with strict caps on group size and a clear meeting point: the information desk.
Embroidered in Concrete — A Writer’s Personal Tour
January 31, 2026, 15:00–16:00
Writer and art historian Rita Halász leads a deeply personal walk through the collections that shaped her novel Betonba hímezve (Embroidered in Concrete). She says: Working in a museum is a privileged state. Once you’ve felt it, you long to return even if you move on. At the National Gallery, artworks slowly became part of my daily life—almost family.
Her soft spots: the Gothic collection with its old-man-faced baby Jesuses and S-shaped Madonnas hollowed at the back—charming, often smile-inducing solutions where medieval masters’ human frailty peeks through. She nods to her favorite weary pilgrim from Zalaszentgrót, resting at a mountain’s foot. Equally vital: the contemporary collection—El Kazovszkij’s Striding Beast, Gyula Pauer’s split Maya, and Mariann Imre’s Saint Cecilia, her most defining museum encounter. Without these works, her book wouldn’t exist—and neither would the same version of herself.
Duration: 60 minutes. Max: 24 people. Meeting point: information desk.
The Eight (Nyolcak)
February 1, 2026, 15:00–16:00
Linked to the Lajos Tihanyi retrospective, this tour explores the Nyolcak, the group that debuted as the Keresők (The Seekers). They worked together for just three years, 1909–1912, staging three joint exhibitions, yet their impact hit like a scientific and technological revolution, jolting Hungarian cultural and visual life awake. Join to trace their radical shift in form, color, and modernist outlook.
Access with a permanent exhibition ticket plus a program ticket: $4.10. Duration: 60 minutes. Max: 17 people. Meeting point: information desk.
The Most Beautiful Hungarian Love Paintings
February 14, 2026, 15:30–16:30
A Valentine’s Day ramble after artists and muses, where love appears joyous and passionate—or stormy and tragic—through canvases by Pál Szinyei Merse, János Vaszary, and Róbert Berény. Expect ardor, rupture, and everything in between.
Access with a permanent exhibition ticket plus a program ticket: $4.10. Duration: 60 minutes. Max: 20 people. Meeting point: information desk.
Nude Sculptures from the Turn of the Century
February 22, 2026, 15:00–16:00
The nude is one of art’s oldest themes, but its depiction constantly shifts with the ideals of the age. Tour the renewed exhibition of 19th–20th-century nude sculpture and see how bodies—and beauty—were reinvented.
Access with a permanent exhibition ticket plus a program ticket: $4.10. Duration: 60 minutes. Max: 20 people. Meeting point: information desk.</final
