Budapest’s Virág Judit Gallery and Auction House rolls out a packed May calendar in 2026, bringing heavyweight names of classical and contemporary Hungarian art under one roof—and under the hammer. From May 4 to 16, daily 10 a.m.–6 p.m., the gallery hosts exhibition previews at its home base at 30 Falk Miksa Street in the 5th district, before two marquee evening auctions: the 81st Spring Auction on Sunday, May 17 at 6 p.m. at the Budapest Congress Center, and the 18th Post-war and Contemporary Auction on Tuesday, May 19 at 6 p.m. at the Budapest Music Center. Bidding is open in person, by phone, via absentee bid, or on the gallery’s online platform.
81st Spring Auction: Vaszary’s Trieste Masterpiece Leads
Headlining the 81st Spring Auction is a blazing Mediterranean vision by János Vaszary, painted in Trieste in 1927 during his journeys along the northern Istrian coast, through Portorož, Piran, and Trieste. While the seaside glamour of Portorož drew him to the beach scene, Piran and Trieste steered him toward the working life of the ports. The sun-struck landscape and southern light pushed Vaszary toward ever more distilled, high-intensity color. True to his credo, he compressed the essence of what he saw—paring back tools, simplifying light and space—while amping up chromatic power. The painting unfurls Trieste’s expansive main square opening to the harbor, the Piazza dell’Unità d’Italia, in searing, decorative tones. Beneath a festive parasol on a café terrace, elegant women chat with a soldier; their cloche hats echo the fashion of the day, as two gendarmes keep gentle order across the sunlit square.
Another star lot, Imre Szobotka’s 1915 In the Studio (Műteremben), stands as a keystone of Hungarian Cubism. After graduating from the Budapest School of Applied Arts in 1910, Szobotka moved to Paris to study at the Académie La Palette under Jean Metzinger and Henri Le Fauconnier—two architects of the emerging Cubist language. He moved swiftly from admirer to peer: artists he had marveled at in the Cubist room of the 1911 Salon des Indépendants appeared alongside him on the very same stage just two years later. Szobotka’s place in art history is cemented as a significant representative of European modernism’s Cubist trajectory after the turn of the century.
Classic Names, Enduring Appeal
The spring lineup also features a slice of circus life and the 1930s zeitgeist from Vilmos Aba-Novák; Károly Patkó’s Italian-painted Subiaco; and a light, French-inflected garden scene by Ödön Márffy. Elegant Art Deco portraits by Béla Kádár and Hugó Scheiber add allure, with the poised, stylized femininity that defined an era. These are museum-quality canvases that anchor the gallery’s reputation for unearthing and circulating the best of classical and early modern Hungarian painting, backed by exhibition exposure before the bidding starts.
18th Post-war & Contemporary Auction: Hantaï Sets the Pace
The May 19 contemporary sale focuses on the most globally coveted names in Hungarian post-war and contemporary art. A large 1955 oil by Simon Hantaï—titled simply “Painting” (Festmény)—launches at 50,000,000 HUF (about 137,000 USD), with an estimate of 95,000,000–120,000,000 HUF (roughly 260,000–328,000 USD). Access to Hantaï’s work in the Hungarian market is rare, and a piece of this caliber and scale rarer still. Hantaï, who spent virtually his entire active career in France, became one of the world’s most renowned abstract painters. In 2016, one of his works fetched 1,400,000,000 HUF (about 3,836,000 USD) at auction—the highest price ever paid for an artwork by a Hungarian or Hungarian-born artist.
Another highlight is Imre Bak’s 1995 Die Stadt (The City), opening at 11,000,000 HUF (around 30,000 USD). Ákos Birkás appears with a defining entry from his Head (Fej) series: the 1996 Kopf, emblematic of his cool, conceptual portraiture tradition. Pál Deim’s 1990 Silence (Csend), from the Szentendre master, sparks special interest, starting at 8,500,000 HUF (about 23,000 USD).
Records, Rarity, and a Rome Year
Ilona Keserü—holder of a headline-making record when one of her works sold for 110,000,000 HUF (about 301,000 USD), making her the most expensive living Hungarian artist—returns with Anguillara, created in 1963, the pivotal year she spent in Rome on a scholarship. The painting opens at 10,000,000 HUF (circa 27,000 USD), offering collectors a touchstone from a formative phase. Additional works rounding out the evening include pieces by Dóra Maurer, János Fajó, István Nádler, and István ef. Zámbó—pillars of the Hungarian neo-avant-garde and geometric-conceptual lineage whose international resonance has only grown.
How to See It, How to Bid
Both auctions are accompanied by a comprehensive viewing at Virág Judit Gallery, 30 Falk Miksa Street, 1055 Budapest, open daily May 4–16, 10 a.m.–6 p.m. The 81st Spring Auction takes place at the Budapest Congress Center on Sunday, May 17, 6 p.m.; the 18th Post-war and Contemporary Auction follows at the Budapest Music Center on Tuesday, May 19, 6 p.m. Bidders can participate in person, by phone, via written absentee bids, or through the gallery’s proprietary online platform. The address, the hours, the preview, the stellar lists—everything is aligned for two nights that map Hungarian art’s past century, from sunlit piazzas and Cubist studios to rigorous abstraction and post-war reinvention, all playing out in the heart of Budapest.
