HUNGARIAN ART TREASURES DONATED TO JANE VOORHEES ZIMMERLI ART MUSEUM

Salgo Trust for Education gives its collection to Rutgers

The largest and most important collection of 19th- and 20th-century Hungarian art outside of Central Europe will be acquired by the Jane Voorhees Zimmerli Art Museum at Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey, as a gift from the Salgo Trust for Education.

The Salgo collection comprises 350 works of art by more than 100 artists. Styles represented include 19th-century academic painting, plein-air painting, Art Nouveau and Secessionist works, 20th-century avant-garde works and works in the regionalist style of the interwar period.

Among the notable pieces in the collection are five works by Mihaly Munkácsy, the most important Hungarian artist of the 19th century; “Mother and Two Children,” an 1869 painting by Pál Szinyei-Merse representing one of the earliest examples of Central European Impressionism; and “Architektur 1,” a seminal painting by László Moholy-Nagy from 1921-1922 representing one of his first expressions of complete geometric abstraction. A recently uncovered Dada-influenced work by Moholy-Nagy on the verso of the painting makes this work a particularly important document in the artist’s development.

“Rutgers is deeply honored to be selected by the Salgo Trust as the future home of its outstanding collection of Hungarian art,” said Rutgers President Richard L. McCormick. “It is significant that the collection is coming to New Brunswick, which has been a center of Hungarian-American life and culture for more than 125 years. The collection will be an important resource for students and scholars, and will enhance the university’s commitment to advancing Hungarian studies.”

Located in Port Washington, N.Y., the Salgo Trust for Education is an art history research center founded by the late Hungarian-American financier and diplomat, Ambassador Nicolas M. Salgo, to maintain his extensive art collection. The trust has exhibited the collection throughout the world.

In reference to the gift, Dr. Miklos Salgo, trustee of the Salgo Trust for Education and son of Nicolas M. Salgo, said: “We feel that we could not have found a more appropriate location for our collection. Since research and education were of primary importance to my father when he established the trust, this is a fitting tribute to his memory. My sister Christina Salgo and I, along with other board members of the Salgo Trust, are pleased to work with the Zimmerli, and we hope the collection will enrich Rutgers, communities in and around New Brunswick and in the New York metropolitan area, as well as scholars of art and Hungarian culture.”

The gift of the collection and accompanying financial support is one of the largest ever received by the Zimmerli, and the new collection offers a number of affinities with the museum’s existing collections. According to Gregory J. Perry, director of the Zimmerli, thematic and stylistic linkages will offer opportunities for research to students and scholars from Rutgers and other institutions.

“The addition of the Nicholas M. Salgo collection enables the Zimmerli to tell a broader story of European modernism by adding important works from Central Europe,” Perry said. “For instance, the collection includes fine examples of mid-19th century landscape painting, fin-de-siècle and Art Nouveau work that echo the themes and styles of works in our French collections.

“A good number of the early 20th-century, avant-garde examples interplay with our Russian Constructivist material. And there were Hungarian artists in the mid-20th century working in a modernist vein under a restrictive and culturally conservative Communist regime, as did the artists represented in our collections of Soviet nonconformist art,” Perry added, “The presence of the Nicholas M. Salgo collection at the Zimmerli will give the works the public exposure they deserve and will provide increased access to researchers and scholars.”

In addition to the art works, the gift includes a collection of 16th- to 19th-century
maps of Central Europe, a collection of rare books and a supporting research library. The
Salgo Trust also will provide substantial support for the collection, including funding for the construction of a state-of-the-art storage facility at Rutgers and the digitization of the collection. An endowment will be set up to support a part-time curator and other needs. Rutgers, in turn, will create a graduate fellowship for modern Hungarian art. The execution of the gift and other aspects of the donation will be completed within the next 10 years.

Rutgers and the neighborhoods bordering its College Avenue campus, on which the Zimmerli is located, remain a locus of Hungarian-American cultural life, history and scholarship. The area has been home to one of the largest concentrations of Hungarian-Americans in the country. The university is one of only two institutions in the nation with a full-fledged Hungarian studies program. The Institute for Hungarian Studies at Rutgers supports the undergraduate curriculum in Hungarian studies and sponsors cultural and educational programming.

New Brunswick is also the home of the American Hungarian Foundation, an organization that, through its museum, library and archives, presents Hungarian cultural and historical heritage in the United States. The foundation’s 50,000-volume library is an affiliate of and accessible through the Rutgers University library system.

With 35,000 square feet of exhibition space and 50,000 works of art, the Jane Voorhees Zimmerli Art Museum is one of the largest university art museums in the country. It serves the Rutgers community as well as audiences in New Jersey and the region. The Zimmerli has collection strengths in French 19th-century art; Russian art of the 15th through 20th centuries; and American art of the last two centuries, including a concentration on mid-20th century and contemporary prints. It has an active exhibition schedule and regularly organizes exhibitions for travel in the United States and abroad. The Zimmerli offers education programs for every age level and level of expertise. It serves thousands of K-12 students annually from the state of New Jersey.