The Hungarian National Gallery charts the rise and evolution of Hungarian fine art with the country’s most comprehensive collection. Throughout 2026, the Budapest museum presents permanent and temporary exhibitions, guided tours in multiple languages, themed programs, family days, festivals, and concerts. Kids get hands-on with creative clubs, arts education workshops, and summer camps, while adults can dive deep into masterpieces and movements shaping Central European modernism.
Kids Create: Color It Again! Workshops
January kicks off with Color It Again!, a museum workshop that turns children into sleuths. The galleries are alive with mysterious stories, and young detectives chase clues through dozens of works by Lajos Tihanyi, one of the most original figures in the Hungarian avant-garde. Together they search his paintings for hidden details, piece together a larger puzzle, and crack the case. Then they switch from investigation to creation: forging playful “forgeries,” crafting composite sketches, and experimenting with photo manipulation. On February 4 and 11, the workshop time-travels through everyday life in earlier eras using paintings, genre scenes, portraits, and old photographs. Kids look at objects people used, clothes they wore, games they played, and dreams they had—then draw, paint, make comics, and invent their own stories.
“Mama, Look!” Talks
On January 29, The Silence Speaks explores how Tihanyi’s childhood loss of hearing and speech shaped a singular artistic voice—turning a disadvantage into a defining force. On February 5, The Beauty of the Body focuses on the human figure, especially the nude, as a timeless theme that mirrors each era’s ideals. The tour spotlights the refreshed exhibition, Nude Sculptures from the Turn of the Century.
Lajos Tihanyi: Rebellious Forms, Bold Colors
Multiple dates celebrate the 140th anniversary of Tihanyi’s birth with a major retrospective of his key paintings, graphics, and personal objects. Losing his hearing as a child, he drew color and form out of silence and found a unique voice in the language of paint. Without academic training, he forged a striking visual vocabulary that made him a defining member of the Nyolcak (The Eight) and one of the most original figures in 20th-century Hungarian painting. Guided tours run on January 29 and 31, and February 7, 8, 11, and 12, with an English-language tour on February 13 under the title Rebellious Forms, Bold Colors – The Art of Lajos Tihanyi.
Inside the Mind of a Phenomenon
On January 30, art historian Blanka Bán leads a guided tour titled Phenomenon: That Was Lajos Tihanyi. Expect answers to questions like: What career did his parents envision for him? Why did he paint both sides of certain canvases? What did contemporaries say about his personality, and how did he portray them in portraits? And how did he leap from the fauves’ fearless color to nonfigurative abstraction?
Writerly Perspectives
January 31 features Embroidered in Concrete—author and art historian Rita Halász’s subjective tour. On February 6, Halász returns with Budapest–Berlin–Paris: Lajos Tihanyi’s Road to Abstraction, tracing how café culture at the turn of the century, Berlin’s avant-garde, and Parisian modernism transformed his style from figurative compositions to a pure language of color and form.
The Eight: A Short, Loud Revolution
February 1 brings a scheduled guided tour dedicated to the Nyolcak (The Eight). Initially calling themselves the “Seekers,” the group worked together for just three years, from 1909 to 1912, and mounted three joint exhibitions. Brief as it was, their intervention jolted Hungarian culture and the visual arts like a scientific and technological revolution.
Music Under the Dome
On February 1, the first-floor dome hall hosts the Albert Schweitzer Chamber Choir and Orchestra for a Sunday choral concert—part of the museum’s mix of art and live music programming.
Online Tours From Home
Can’t make it in person? Join an online guided tour of the Tihanyi exhibition on February 3, or the Adolf Fényes show on February 10, and get expert insights without leaving the couch.
Make and Move: Hands-On Art
On February 7, Create! – Naked Reality explores representations of the human body from the 19th century to the present. After a gallery walk, participants turn their own bodies into theme and tool, making body prints to close the loop between looking and making.
Adolf Fényes’s Quiet Worlds
Also on February 7, A Silence of Pictures introduces A Silence of Pictures: Adolf Fényes (1867–1945), along with related works from the permanent collection, followed by an online edition on February 10.
From Crypt to Cupola
February 8 unlocks the building itself with a special architectural tour: from the crypt of the Habsburg palatines to the panorama-rich cupola, discover the former royal palace’s secrets while tracing the history and collection of the Hungarian National Gallery.
Tours for Tots and Multilingual Guides
February 10’s Toddlers – Venice Carnival whisks little ones to Italy’s most elegant masked celebrations. Expect dancing, carousel fun, role-play, and crafting a flamboyant carnival mask. On February 8, a French-language tour dives into The Art of Lajos Tihanyi. And on February 13, an Italian visita guidata explores Hungarian masterpieces from the Middle Ages to today, with a special focus on the 19th and 20th centuries.
