Blockbuster Van Gogh Exhibition in Budapest

The last exhibition devoted to Van Gogh’s works in Budapest – though far from the dimensions of the current retrospective – opened in 1907. Now, 100 years later, the Museum of Fine Arts (Szepmuveszeti Muzeum) is about to give the artist his due: some 150 of Van Gogh’s most renowned works are being shown in an exhibition from December 2, 2006, to March 20, 2007.

Only four paintings in the exhibit are from the museum’s own collection, another 76 are on loan from such museums as the Musée d’Orsay, Paris, the National Gallery in Washington, D.C., and New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art. The Budapest Museum of Fine Arts is making no secret of its ambition to break previous Hungarian records for attendance at an art exhibit, most recently held by the Hungarian National Gallery’s Munkácsy show, with 350,000 visitors.

To facilitate paying homage to the memory of the long-suffering artist, the Budapest museum is making advance purchase of tickets possible either in person at the museum, at ticket agencies in some 50 locations throughout Hungary, or online.