The Hungarian National Gallery is the country’s largest public collection documenting the birth and evolution of Hungarian fine art. Housed in Buda’s former Royal Palace, it offers permanent and temporary exhibitions, guided tours in Hungarian and foreign languages, themed programs, family days, festivals, and concerts. Kids can dive into creative clubs, art education sessions, and summer camps—basically, a cultural playground with an epic view.
For the Littlest Visitors
November 4 and 18: Tots – Young Ladies and Gentlemen. Step into the world of elegant homes and salons and peek at how young ladies and gentlemen once lived, dressed, and passed their time. It’s history through fabrics, etiquette, and the rituals of refined living. Budapest.
December 2: Tots – Shooting Stars. A quiet winter afternoon’s chase after a bright celestial wonder. Follow a star through ancient altarpieces, listen in on angelic song, then stroll in imagination through a snowy landscape. After the gallery adventure, create seasonal art exploring all the magic hidden in white paint. Budapest.
Kids’ Creative Workshop: Recolor!
November 5, 12, 19, 26: Recolor! Museum workshop for kids. The theater moves into the Gallery this month. Children step into works of art and try on different roles—writing and performing stories while crafting the essentials of stage life: masks, puppets, headdresses, and even a mini stage set. Kings, queens, farmhands, goose girls—remember, it’s all play! Budapest.
Mind & Art: Slow Looking, Big Thoughts
November 5: Mental Fitness – The Beauty of Everyday Life. Through Adolf Fényes’s paintings, everyday simplicity unfolds: sunlit yards, quiet interiors, market scenes, peasant houses, churches, and the comforting rhythm of a bygone era. The images spark memories and associations, opening space for conversation and light mental challenges. Explore the memorial exhibition Pictures of Tranquillity: Adolf Fényes and related works in the permanent collection, then head to the studio to create. Budapest.
December 10: Mental Fitness – Christmas Miracle. An Advent program immersing visitors in the quiet, festive worlds of paintings and altars. Reflect on the season’s depths and beauty through art, then continue with hands-on creation after the gallery walk. Budapest.
Dance, Language, and Living Traditions
November 7: EX-POSE(S) | Dance performance. Discover where body, movement, and visual art meet. Contemporary dance enters into a lively dialogue with the visual arts. Budapest.
November 7: Visita guidata in italiano. Un tour in italiano tra i capolavori dell’arte ungherese, dal Medioevo a oggi, con particolare attenzione all’Ottocento e al Novecento. Chissà, magari tra i quadri incontrerete anche Dante! Budapest.
Fashion, Faces, and the Drama of Detail
November 8: Always Changing – Fashion History in Paintings. From baroque pomp to cool classicism, trace what fashion dictated, including the path from heavy women’s hair buns to the bob. A vivid journey through centuries of dress history. Part of the Autumn Festival of Museums. Budapest.
November 9: The Grand Mustache Panorama. Twirled, dashing, or outlaw-chic? Every style of facial hair signals something—tidiness, masculinity, rebellious freedom. Join a guided tour where history, fashion, and the men behind the whiskers take center stage. Budapest.
Make Something: From Canvas to Canvas
November 8: Create! – From Canvas to Canvas. After visiting the memorial exhibition A csend képei (Pictures of Tranquillity), honoring Adolf Fényes—key figure at the turn of the 19th–20th centuries and founder of the Szolnok artists’ colony—get inspired by his colors and motifs to paint unique aprons that bring the artist’s world to life. Budapest.
Family-Friendly Highlights
November 13 and 27: Look, Mom! – Sunlit Everyday Life. Fényes’s name may not be instantly familiar, but his paintings bathe even modest interiors in sunshine and make market scenes vibrantly alive. Wander through his landscapes and intimate interiors, and consider how a peasant yard sits in the shadow of French Impressionism, what links a Szolnok veranda to Paris, and what century-old genre scenes reveal about simple joys and sorrows. Budapest.
November 15: Adventure in the Gallery – St. Martin’s Day Fun. 10:30–11:15 guided tour for ages 6–9; 11:30–12:15 guided tour for ages 10–13. Budapest.
November 20: Look at that, Mom! – Sunny Days. An English-language tour of Pictures of Tranquillity, viewing Adolf Fényes’s works alongside the permanent collection. Budapest.
Adolf Fényes, Up Close
November 15: Adolf Fényes and the Szolnok Artists’ Colony. Guided tour of Pictures of Tranquillity: Adolf Fényes (1867–1945) and related works from the permanent collection. Budapest.
November 29: The Last Painter of Beauty: Adolf Fényes | Lecture by art historian Gábor Bellák. A series designed to deepen the exhibition experience with stories, context, and curiosities you’d miss in the galleries—connections and details only visible under the metaphorical magnifying glass. Budapest.
Modernism Shocks the System
November 22: The Eight – Announced Guided Tour. Connected to the Lajos Tihanyi (Tihanyi Lajos) retrospective, get to know the artists’ group The Eight, who first appeared as the Seekers. Their brief collaboration from 1909 to 1912, across three group exhibitions, jolted Hungarian cultural and artistic life like a scientific and technological revolution. Budapest.
Inside the Palace: Secrets and Views
November 23: Explore the Gallery – From the Crypt to the Dome. Discover the hidden wonders of the former Royal Palace of Buda and the Hungarian National Gallery’s collections. See the Habsburg Palatine Crypt and take in the knockout view from the dome. Budapest.
November 30: Building Tour – From the Crypt to the Dome. Another chance to trace the palace’s story: the crypt, the panorama-drenched dome, and other special corners of the building. Budapest.
Golden Season, Golden Crafts
December 4: Look, Mom! – Maternal Parallels. Warming up for Christmas, find the most depicted mother and child in art history—Virgin Mary and Jesus—across paintings, panels, and sculptures. Spot patterns as the timeless theme returns in the Middle Ages, then resurfaces in modern and contemporary art. Budapest.
December 6: Create! – Golden Holiday. On St. Nicholas Day, dive into the legend of Saint Nicholas and the luminous world of Gothic altars and gilding. After the walk, decorate small tablecloths with gold paint inspired by altar motifs—a radiant touch for the holiday table. Budapest.
