The exhibition Across the ages. A selection from the MBH Bank Collection and works by contemporary artists associates works by such famous artists as László Mednyánszky, Bertalan Székely, Ödön Márffy and József Rippl-Rónai with works by young contemporary artists. The public display of the bank’s collection is a unique opportunity to see the 19th century Romantic landscapes, modernist still-lifes and emblematic classical contemporary works. The Nagybánya School, the Eights and the Roman School are also represented, and the dynamic development of the collection culminates in bold, 21st-century works, paying tribute to the classical legacy.

Nearly three decades ago, the management of MKB Bank – now MBH Bank – set the goal of creating its own fine art collection in order to enable the increasing number of valuable paintings appearing on the art market from private collections to enter the public domain. Bertalan Székely’s romantic painting Boating Lovers was the first outstanding artwork acquired, around which the core of the collection was built. In accordance with the bank’s image, the collector’s preference was initially the works of nineteenth-century Hungarian artists, which was later joined by works of representatives of twentieth-century classical modernism. The current exhibition, which has matured over a decade and a half and includes hundreds of works, features such highlights as rare landscape paintings by Ferenc Markó, Antal Ligeti and László Mednyánszky, and a work by József Rippl-Rónai that foreshadows his era of Banyuls. The exhibition also includes some ambitious canvases by the neo-impressionist artist Sándor Ziffer from Nagybánya, the lonely tree by Dezső Orbán of the Eight, a careful cubism by Csaba Vilmos Perlrott and an atmospheric painting of Badacsony by József Egry will also be presented at the exhibition.

The representative pieces of the collection and the works by the latest generation are presented together to create an exhibition with a contemporary message. The contemporary works of Gergő Ámmer, Mátyás Boros, Ábel Kotormán, Eszter Metzing and Dániel Sallay refer back to the art of the past in their figurality and motifs, and following the principle of ars universale and paying tribute to the greatness of their predecessors, they bring the collection into the present age.