Museums

Museums are closed on Mondays, except where noted. Most museums offer substantial student and senior discounts. Many also offer a family rate. Inquire at the ticket window.

A New Direction for the Museum of Fine Arts

In 2004, then 43-year-old László Baán took the helm of the Museum of Fine Arts, promising to bring the museum into the 21st century. On his first day on the job, the self-professed technocrat removed comely advertising billboards that surrounded the dirty building facade, initiated the creation of a multiple-language website, and pledged to follow a policy of openness that would usher the institution back onto the international stage. He has since initiated the re-design of the museum, which will include a store, more modernist-era representation, and an ambitious plan to increase the exhibition space itself.

Until recently, the museum had only created a handful of exhibitions that attracted large numbers of viewers. Blockbuster-type exhibitions are now on the agenda. Not only did the museum lack the infrastructure, however, but its staff also had little savvy or knowledge of how to successfully run a world-class museum. Báan would like to promote the collection, and better "sell" his museum, and bring it to international levels.

He points to the Leonardo da Vinci sculpture as a gem, the only one recognized as being from the hands of the master. He also notes the Spanish collection of the museum, said to be the most important in continental Europe outside of Spain and Portugal. A third strong point of the museum is its impressive prints and drawings collection, Báan says.

The Museum of Fine Arts in Budapest was established in 1906 with the Esterházy collection, amassed by one of Hungary's leading and wealthiest families. The collection included hundreds of old master paintings, including the Esterházy Madonna of 1508, by the Italian painter Raphaello, works by Veronese, Duccio, and El Greco, and 8,000 prints and drawings. The museum now has more than 100,000 artifacts, including more than 6,000 modern and old master paintings, a Greco-Roman collection of antiquities, a wealthy collection of Spanish art, and a host of fine French Impressionist works.

The museum is not without challenges. It faces lawsuits seeking the return of artworks left with the museum for safekeeping during World War II. The Hungarian government continues to fight the cases in the courts for paintings that were left with the museum in safekeeping during World War II. In the meantime, some 2,500 artworks that once belonging to Hungarians are still in the hands of Russia, who consider these works of art ?trophy art," refusing to return the World War II-era war loot. Restitution claims seem to be stuck in the legal system.