Futurism, one of the most radical artistic trends in 20th century avant-garde art, was born in 1909. In 2009 many international exhibitions celebrated the centenary of the movement, founded by Filippo Tommaso Marinetti, for example a part of this centenary exhibition series was the re-opening of the modernised gallery and museum Casa d’Arte Futurista Depero in Rovereto, which operates as an institution of Museo di Arte Moderna e Contemporanea di Trento e Rovereto.

During the last twenty years there has been a growing interest in the versatile activities of Fortunato Depero, of which the Hungarian audience will now receive a comprehensive picture for the first time. Visitors to the Hungarian National Gallery in the Buda Castle can admire his paintings, paperworks, colourful carpets and advertisement plans (among others for the companies Campari, Vogue and Vanity Fair), as well as his picto-plastic theatrical experiments.

Since the Hungarian National Gallery thinks that it is important to present significant works from the Hungarian arts to the audience in an international context, a Hungarian selection of nearly sixty pieces can also be seen, with the title “The impact of futurism on Hungarian avant-garde art”, in addition to the Italian material, which introduces Depero’s career. Here we mainly present the works of Hungarian artists who followed the lessons and characteristics of futurism in their arts from 1910-1919.

Among many other artists, the works of Sánsor Bortnyik, Lajos Tihanyi, Béla Uitz, János Schadl, Béla Kádár and Hugó Schreiber will be exhibited. Most of the paintings are owned by the paintings and graphics collection of the Hungarian National Gallery, but the exhibition will also include some pieces, from Hungarian private collections, which have never been seen before. During the exhibition some publications and documents from the period, which have been preserved in the database of the Hungarian National Gallery or in private collections, can also be admired.

The material of the Budapest exhibition, which presents more than a hundred Depero works, will arrive from the collection of the Museo di Arte Moderna e Contemporanea di Trento e Rovereto, which takes care of the artist’s heritage. The exhibition has been supported by the Italian Embassy of Hungary and the Italian Culture Institute of Budapest; its main sponsors were His Excellency, Giorgio Napolitano, the president of the Italian Republic, and His Excellency, László Sólyom, the president of the Hungarian Republic, and it has also been sponsored by Sandro Bondi, the minister for cultural artefacts and activities of the Italian Republic.

The curators of the exhibition: art historian Gabriella Belli, the director of Museo di Arte Moderna e Contemporanea di Trento e Rovereto, and art historian Mariann Gergely, the chief museologist of the Hungarian National Gallery."

Source: Hungarian National Gallery