On the radar this season: a heady mix of avant-garde anniversaries, family-friendly workshops, candlelit art walks, and behind-the-scenes peeks at the former Royal Palace of Buda, now home to the Hungarian National Gallery (Magyar Nemzeti Galéria). From the pioneers of The Eight (Nyolcak) to the quiet poetry of Adolf Fényes (Fényes Adolf) and the defiant color of Lajos Tihanyi (Tihanyi Lajos), November and December in Budapest are for art lovers who like a little story with their brushstrokes.
The Eight shake the city awake
November opens with The Eight (Nyolcak) – the short-lived, long-shadow group that first called themselves Seekers (Keresők). They worked together only three years, from 1909 to 1912, and staged just three joint shows. Still, their impact hit like a scientific and technological revolution, jolting Hungary’s cultural scene out of its comfort zone. A guided tour tied to the Lajos Tihanyi retrospective dives into each member’s art and why their brief blaze still burns through the 20th century.
Secrets of a palace: crypts and a dome view
Explore the Gallery – From the Crypt to the Dome takes you into the bones of the building itself: the Habsburg Palatine Crypt, echoing and austere, and the panoramic lookout from the dome, which snaps the city into a single sweeping view. It’s part architecture tour, part collection highlight reel, and all atmosphere.
Kids color outside the lines
Color It Anew! (Színezd újra!) – the museum’s workshop series for children – pitches camp in the gallery spaces. In November, theater moves in: kids write stories, act them out, and craft masks, puppets, headpieces, even a stage set. They can be kings and queens, farmhands and gooseherds. It’s all play, and it looks the part.
Lajos Tihanyi: rebel forms, bold colors
Marking 140 years since his birth, the Lajos Tihanyi exhibition assembles major paintings, graphic works, and personal objects. Deaf from childhood, Tihanyi pulled color and form out of silence and found a singular voice without academic training. He forged a visual language that made him both a key figure in The Eight and one of the most original painters in Hungarian modernism. The show returns repeatedly through the season with guided tours, inviting visitors to dig into his methods, friendships, and radical legacy. For decades, Hungarians knew Tihanyi mostly from black-and-white reproductions; his estate made a dramatic journey from Paris to Budapest 55 years ago, finally anchoring in the National Gallery’s collection.
Sunlit daily life with Adolf Fényes
Mama, Look! – Sunlit Weekdays brings Adolf Fényes into focus. He might not be a household name, but his paintings throw open windows: market scenes that feel fable-bright, humble interiors washed with sun, and everyday life framed with the gravity usually reserved for history painting. Expect conversations about how a peasant yard fits beneath the long shadow of French Impressionism, what a Szolnok veranda could have to do with Paris, and what century-old genre scenes say about simple joys and sorrows. Later, an art historian’s talk, The Last Painter of Beauty, folds in the backstory and the granular details you won’t catch on the wall labels. December adds a festive tour: winter flavors, snowy landscapes, the music of angels, and a whiff of pine, with the Fényes memorial show at the center and ties across the permanent collection.
MÚZEUM+ goes all in on Tihanyi
On December 3, MÚZEUM+ spotlights Tihanyi as both open-hearted friend and artistic firebrand, and retraces the unlikely path his legacy took to reach Hungary. It’s the after-hours, fuller-picture kind of program that makes the biography as compelling as the brushwork.
Advent in the galleries
The season threads spiritual calm and craft into the schedule. The Advent building walks reprise the crypt-to-dome route with a holiday glow. Spiritual Fitness (Szellemi fitnesz) – Christmas Miracle invites visitors to slow down with medieval altarpieces and quiet canvases, then make something inspired in the workshop. Toddlers (Tipegők) – Shooting Stars builds a soft winter afternoon for the smallest visitors: choral angels, snow underfoot, and the possibilities of white paint, with hands-on making to prepare for the holidays. Look at That, Mom! – Reflections of Motherhood traces depictions of mother and child from the Middle Ages into modern and contemporary art. December’s Color It Anew! (Színezd újra!) transforms into a winter travel story: icy landscapes, warm homes, and encounters with St. Nicholas, Mary, and the infant Jesus, followed by creative sessions sparked by the tales.
Gold leaf and family days
Create! (Alkoss!) – Golden Holiday glitters on St. Nicholas Day with a dive into the history of gilding and Gothic altars. After the tour, participants decorate small table linens with gold paint, borrowing motifs from the altars—shining accents for the feast table. And in the run-up to Christmas, Family Day (CSALÁDI NAP) – holiday prep with Csontváry sets a family-day stage where play, art, and festive mood meet, because sometimes the best gift is a shared afternoon wandering among masterpieces.
One more lap around the dome
If you missed the architecture tour the first time, the gallery’s building stroll returns mid-December, pairing that hushed Habsburg crypt with the dome’s blockbuster view and detours into the palace’s other hidden corners. It’s the kind of loop that makes the collection feel plugged into the city, and the city feel close enough to touch.
