A collector and his collection: Lajos Ernst and the Ernst Museum

The Ernst Museum celebrates the 90th anniversary of its existence in 2002. For this occasion, the museum presents its history and the collection of its founder, the collector, Lajos Ernst. The exhibition is divided into three important parts. In the first, we present the history of the museum building to the public, using architectural plans and photographs. This is the only purpose-built 20th century building in a central location in Budapest, and together with the studio flat and its incorporation into a block of flats, it reflects a secularized (bourgeois and business based) concept of a museum. The art nouveau decoration of the interior spaces were created in the spirit of garden metaphors in art.
The second part is the exhibition of Lajos Ernst's collection. In the third part of the exhibition, the public can see a selection of material from the shows organised at the Ernst Museum between 1912 and 1937. The exhibition is not only spectacular - it can count on the interest of the profession and the wider public, with the outstanding quality of the museum works of art - but it throws light on a previously almost unknown segment of the cultural history of Budapest.
A catalogue passing for a book of studies accompanies the exhibition.