In Italy, modernism became inseparable from antiquity. Its art, history, lights, tastes and scents were something Hungarian painters from the 19th century to modernity wanted to experience.
Antal Ligeti travelled around the country and painted landscapes on the basis of his own experiences, while Károly Markó the Elder chose Italy as his second home, gaining an inexhaustible subject for his painting. Along with the landscapes of Italy and the iconic works of the cult of Antiquity and the Renaissance, the paintings, paper-based works, sculptures and photographs also depict less sublime subjects, like typical characters and urban scenes.
Hungarian artists in the 20th century were usually captivated by Italians’ everyday life: in their expressive paintings, Aurél Bernáth and Vilmos Aba-Novák render the atmosphere of the views with competing blue patches of sea and sky, while János Vaszary does the same with serene, colourful crowds on sandy beaches. Ferenc Szoldatics and Gábor Melegh were as fascinated by the Italian attitude to life as are contemporary artists like Emese Benczúr and László Fehér.

The exhibition is on view between 8 April and 23 August.