The Hungarian National Gallery, the country’s largest public collection tracing the rise and evolution of Hungarian visual art, is kicking off 2026 with a packed calendar. Expect permanent and temporary exhibitions, guided tours in multiple languages, themed programs, family days, festivals, and concerts. Kids are front and center, too, with creative clubs, art-education workshops, and summer camps filling out the season. Much of January spotlights the trailblazing painter Lajos Tihanyi on the 140th anniversary of his birth, with tours, talks, and hands-on sessions that unpack his life, work, and legacy in punchy, accessible ways.
Hands-on kids’ workshops and family adventures
January 14 launches the Color It Again! museum studio for kids, a detective-style club where young sleuths scour the Gallery’s spaces for clues hidden in artworks. The mission: crack the secrets of Lajos Tihanyi. Children examine dozens of pieces, hunt down tiny details, then dive into making: forging paintings as part of the investigation, crafting composite “phantom” portraits, and experimenting with photo editing. The program runs again on January 21 and 28.
On January 24, Adventure in the Gallery – Strange Faces offers age-tailored guided tours: 10:30–11:15 for 6–9-year-olds and 11:30–12:15 for 10–13-year-olds. Later in the month, Tots – Snowflake Dance (January 27) turns winter into a playful sensory journey through snowy forests and color-rich winter scenes, with singing, stories, and dance woven in.
The Tihanyi 140 spotlight
The core of the season is Tihanyi 140, a special career-spanning exhibition honoring one of Hungary’s most original 20th-century painters. Tihanyi lost his hearing in childhood; out of silence, he forged bold colors and forms and found a singular voice in painting—without academic training. His extraordinary visual language helped define the Nyolcak (The Eight) artist group and cemented him as a standout of modern Hungarian art.
Guided tours of Lázadó formák, merész színek – Tihanyi Lajos művészete (Rebellious Forms, Bold Colors – The Art of Lajos Tihanyi) roll out across the month: January 17, 18, 23, 25 (with sign-language interpretation), 29, and 31. Expect his key paintings, graphics, and personal objects on show, plus deep dives into technique and context.
Guided tours, curators, and special voices
January 15 brings Mama, Look! – Silence Speaks, a program exploring how Tihanyi’s deafness shaped and sharpened his art, turning a perceived limitation into radical originality. The same day, TIHANYI 140: curator Mariann Gergely leads a tour retracing how Tihanyi’s works were long known only through black-and-white reproductions at home, and how, 55 years ago, his estate made a thrilling journey from Paris into the Gallery’s collection.
More expert takes follow. On January 16, art historian Gergely Barki leads The Person Behind the Palette, an unconventional tour of Tihanyi 140. Writer and art historian Rita Halász delivers Betonba hímezve (Embroidered in Concrete), a subjective guided tour, on January 17 and again January 31. January 24 features Barki’s lecture, Two or None: Doublings and Hiatuses in Lajos Tihanyi’s Oeuvre, unpacking repetitions and gaps across the artist’s output.
Multilingual and online access
On January 16, visitors can join a visita guidata in italiano, a guided Italian-language tour through the greatest hits of Hungarian art from the Middle Ages to today, with a special focus on the 19th and 20th centuries—and, who knows, perhaps a cameo by Dante among the canvases.
Can’t make it in person? January 22 offers an online guided tour of the Tihanyi exhibition, timed to Hungary’s Day of Culture, bringing the show to you at home.
Make art: abstract painting and creative fitness
Abstract takes the floor on January 17 with Create! – Abstract Experience Painting. After a walk through the galleries, participants paint their own striking abstracts, drawing inspiration from giants like Sean Scully, Judit Reigl, and Simon Hantai, whose bodies of work shaped the field—sometimes through geometric rigor, other times via freewheeling brushwork.
January 21’s Mental Fitness – New Year, New Style looks at artists who reinvented themselves. János Vaszary, József Rippl-Rónai, and Aurél Bernáth each worked across styles; some pieces may surprise you as being by the same hand from a different period. A studio session follows, channeling one of Rippl-Rónai’s styles into new work.
Nudes, modernity, and the Nyolcak
On January 18, Nude Sculptures from the Turn of the Century revisits one of art’s oldest themes—the nude—tracking changing ideals through 19th–20th-century sculpture. A guided tour of the refreshed exhibition explores how representations evolved with cultural shifts.
Closing out the sweep, February 1 previews a Guided Tour of the Nyolcak (The Eight), tied to the Tihanyi retrospective, opening up the group context that fueled—and was in turn shaped by—his fierce, innovative language.
Budapest’s National Gallery is setting the tone for 2026 with programs that are immersive, multilingual, accessible, and hands-on. Whether you’re chasing clues through a masterpiece, wrestling with abstraction, or listening to curators unspool a century-old mystery that carried an artist’s legacy from Paris to Buda, the season’s through line is clear: look closely, think boldly, and let color do the talking.
