Hungarian National Gallery, Art gallery in Buda Castle, Budapest, Hungary
The Hungarian National Gallery occupies rooms within Buda Castle and holds approximately 10,000 paintings spanning Hungarian art from the early 1800s through the 1940s. The collection traces how Hungarian painters and sculptors responded to and participated in broader European artistic movements over more than a century.
The Hungarian National Gallery was founded in 1957, opening on 5 October in the former Curia building on Kossuth Square. A 1959 government decision designated Buda Castle as its new home, and in 1975 the museum moved into the converted B-C-D wings of the palace, opening its exhibitions there in October. In 2012 it was integrated into the Museum of Fine Arts.
The collection displays Medieval and Renaissance wooden altars from the 15th century alongside works by Hungarian artists who worked in Paris and Western Europe. These pieces reveal the artistic connections between Hungary and the rest of the continent during this period.
Entry to the gallery can be reached through several different entrances within the castle, so allow time when arriving to locate the right route. It helps to ask staff or grab a map since the collections span multiple levels throughout the building.
The gallery's home, the B-C-D wing of Buda Castle, was designated by government decree in 1959, but the move only happened in 1975, when exhibitions opened there in October. The collection grew that year with the Old Hungarian Department of the Museum of Fine Arts, allowing the whole history of art in Hungary to be shown from the 11th century onward.
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