Lajos Tihanyi, the fearless Hungarian master of Expressionism and the avant-garde, takes over Budapest with a sweeping retrospective: nearly two hundred works, from key paintings and graphics to objects from his estate, unfold a career built on daring color and abstraction. The venue is at 1014 Budapest, Szent György Square (Szent György tér) 2, and the exhibition puts his experiments and evolution fully on view. A reminder accompanies the visuals: the photograph is under the copyright of the Museum of Fine Arts.
Rebel Forms, Daring Colors – A Life’s Work on Show
January 31, 2026, 15:00–16:00, marks the first guided tour celebrating the 140th anniversary of Tihanyi’s birth, spotlighting his most important paintings, drawings, and personal items. Losing his hearing in childhood, Tihanyi called sound into color and line, finding a singular voice in paint. Without academic training, he forged an extraordinary visual language that made him a key figure in The Eight (Nyolcak) artists’ group and one of the 20th century’s most original Hungarian painters. Join a guided visit to dive deeper into his practice and see the works up close. Entry requires a ticket to the temporary exhibition plus a tour program ticket priced at $4.10. Duration: 60 minutes. Maximum: 17 people. Meeting point: information desk. Additional dates: February 7 (11:00–12:00), February 8 (15:00–16:00), February 11 (16:00–17:00), February 12 (16:00–17:00).
“Phenomenon: That Was Lajos Tihanyi” with Art Historian Blanka Bán
January 30, 2026, 16:00–17:00. Tihanyi emerged from Budapest’s bourgeois milieu and, after a serious illness in youth, lost his hearing—yet his ambition never cracked. Without formal academic training, he built a painterly language that became freer and more experimental for precisely that reason. His vision absorbed the intellectual climates he inhabited: early color-rich attempts gave way to the naturalist lessons of Nagybánya (Baia Mare), and later stints in Paris, Vienna, Berlin, and New York reshaped his gaze. Expression, Cubist structure, and abstraction each inflect his canvases, while he remained consistently independent and enduring across phases. What career did his parents imagine for him as an adult? Why did he paint both sides of certain pictures? What was he like, according to contemporaries, and how did he capture them in portraits? How did he travel from Fauvist vibrancy to nonfigurative art? Blanka Bán’s tour lays it all bare. Full-price ticket: $20.30. Discount: $11.50. Max: 20. Meeting point: ground floor, exhibition entrance.
Explore Tihanyi Online
February 3, 2026, 19:00–20:00. Celebrate his 140th with an online tour from home, and learn more about his painting on the Day of Hungarian Culture. After the live session, you can explore the virtual space on your own for a week: zoom in on works and delve into the gallery texts. Program runs on Zoom. Fee: $4.10 per person. Max: 90. Length: 60 minutes.
Lajos Tihanyi, the Restless Charmer
February 5, 2026, 17:00–18:00. Art manager Nóra Winkler and art historian Tünde Topor co-lead. A singular life, an unconventional career, and a legacy that returned home by a winding path. As a founder of The Eight (Nyolcak), he painted a whole gallery of early 20th-century Hungarian literary and artistic luminaries with razor insight. With him, the psychological portrait marched into Hungarian painting; his portraits double as deep psychological studies. He often turned the lens on himself, and his late abstract compositions are no less compelling. What do his works and their stories say to us today? Full-price ticket: $20.30. Discount: $11.50. Max: 36. Meeting point: ground floor, exhibition entrance. Tickets available online or on-site, first come, first served. After the tour, the show remains open for independent viewing until 18:45.
Budapest–Berlin–Paris: The Road to Abstraction
February 6, 2026, 16:00–17:00. Writer and art historian Rita Halász traces how the fin-de-siècle café culture, the Berlin avant-garde, and Parisian modernism shaped Tihanyi’s style. The tour follows his journey from figurative composition to a language of pure color and form. Full-price ticket: $20.30. Discount: $11.50. Max: 20. Meeting point: ground floor, exhibition entrance. Tickets available online or on-site, first come, first served.
Dates and City
February 3, Budapest. February 5, Budapest. February 6, Budapest. February 7, Budapest. February 8, Budapest. February 11–12, Budapest. Organizers reserve the right to change dates and programs.
