The Hungarian National Gallery, the country’s largest public collection dedicated to charting and showcasing the rise of Hungarian fine art, is rolling out a packed 2026 calendar in Budapest. Expect permanent and temporary exhibitions, guided tours in multiple languages, themed programs, family days, festivals, and concerts. Kids get hands-on with creative clubs, art education sessions, and summer camps—while adults dive deep into major retrospectives and lively talks.
Spotlight: Lajos Tihanyi at 140
All month, the gallery celebrates the 140th anniversary of Lajos Tihanyi with a major career survey, Rebel Forms, Bold Colors – The Art of Lajos Tihanyi (Lázadó formák, merész színek – Tihanyi Lajos művészete). The show brings together his key paintings, graphics, and personal objects. Deaf from childhood, Tihanyi shaped colors and forms out of silence and found a singular voice in painting. Without formal academic training, he forged a striking visual language that made him a standout of The Eight (Nyolcak) and one of the most original figures in 20th-century Hungarian art. Multiple guided tours run on January 17, 18, 23, 25, 29, and 31—one of them on January 25 includes sign-language interpretation.
Guided Tours That Go Off Script
Kicking off January 16, art historian Gergely Barki leads The Person Behind the Palette, an unconventional walk-through of the Tihanyi 140 exhibition. That same day, there’s Visita guidata in italiano, a tour in Italian spanning Hungarian art from the Middle Ages to today, with special emphasis on the 19th and 20th centuries—keep an eye out; Dante might even show up in the picture frames.
On January 17, writer and art historian Rita Halász guides Embroidered in Concrete (Betonba hímezve), a subjective tour with a personal lens on selected works. January 24 features youth tours under Adventure in the Gallery – Strange Faces, with a 10:30–11:15 slot for ages 6–9 and 11:30–12:15 for ages 10–13.
Prefer staying home? On January 22, catch an online tour of the Tihanyi exhibition—perfect for the Day of Hungarian Culture.
Abstract, Hands-On
January 17’s Create! – Abstract Experience Painting turns the gallery into a workshop. After a gallery walk, dive into making your own abstract canvases inspired by heavy-hitters like Sean Scully, Judit Reigl (Reigl Judit), and Simon Hantaï (Hantai Simon)—artists who reshaped the field with bold color strategies, geometric patterns, and free-flowing brushwork.
The Human Body, Reimagined
The nude is one of art’s oldest subjects, and the exhibition Nude Sculptures from the Turn of the Century explores how ideals shift with time. See the refreshed 19th–20th-century selection with guided tours on January 18. On February 5, the Mama, Look! – The Beauty of the Body tour revisits this theme for families, spotlighting how standards of beauty and the era’s vision of humanity are molded in marble and bronze.
Kids as Sleuths (and Artists)
The Recolor It! museum workshop for kids runs January 21 and 28 with a detective twist. The gallery’s spaces brim with mysterious stories; young sleuths follow clues to uncover secrets about Lajos Tihanyi. They’ll scrutinize dozens of his works, hunt for hidden details, and, if they’re sharp, crack the case. Along the way, they’ll “forge” paintings, build a composite sketch, and experiment with photo edits.
On January 27, Toddlers – Snowflake Dance invites little ones on a winter adventure: think songs, stories, dancing with snowflakes, and a palette of snowy shades.
New Year, New Style
January 21’s Mental Fitness – New Year, New Style looks at how artists reinvent themselves. Works by János Vaszary (Vaszary János), József Rippl-Rónai (Rippl-Rónai József), and Aurél Bernáth (Bernáth Aurél) reveal just how dramatically style can shift across periods. After a gallery stroll, participants test-drive one of Rippl-Rónai’s styles in the studio.
Tihanyi, From Coffeehouses to Paris
On January 24, Gergely Barki lectures on Doubles and Gaps in Lajos Tihanyi’s Oeuvre, digging into repetitions, missing links, and the rhythms of a restless career. January 29’s Mama, Look! – When Silence Speaks traces how Tihanyi’s childhood illness, which left him deaf and mute, transformed an obstacle into a defining edge—his art becoming a language all its own.
February 1 shifts the lens to The Eight. In a pre-announced guided tour, the group—initially known as the Seekers—takes center stage. Active only from 1909 to 1912 with three joint exhibitions, their jolt to Hungary’s cultural scene hit like a scientific and technological revolution.
Charismatic, Restless, Unstoppable
February 5 features Lajos Tihanyi, the Restless Charmer, a joint tour by art manager Nóra Winkler (Winkler Nóra) and art historian Tünde Topor (Topor Tünde), promising a lively, personality-driven spin through the show. The next day, February 6, writer and art historian Rita Halász leads Budapest–Berlin–Paris: Lajos Tihanyi’s Road to Abstraction, following his path from turn-of-the-century coffeehouses through the Berlin avant-garde to Parisian modernism—and how each milieu sharpened his edge.
Whether you’re ready to paint your own abstract, decode a century-old mystery, or track a modernist’s leaps across Europe, Budapest’s Hungarian National Gallery has January and early February primed with tours, talks, workshops, and a sweeping tribute to one uncompromising voice.
