Krasznahorkai overtook Margit Kovács – Museums in numbers
More than 230 programs, 3 festivals, 7 exhibition spaces, 24 exhibitions, 42% more visitors – the museums of Szentendre closed a successful year. We spoke with Anna Borbély-Tardy, director of the Ferenczy Museum Center, about the experiences of 2025 and this year’s plans.
Reviewing last year’s statistics, what was the attendance of the exhibitions?
In previous years, the summer months clearly attracted the most visitors, with nearly five times as many people visiting our exhibition spaces between June and September as at the beginning of the year, for example. This trend is still noticeable, as it is related to the period of holidays, school breaks, and the summer boom in tourism. We are proud that, overall, last year, almost 42% more visitors were interested in our exhibitions than in the previous few years, which means that in 2025, more than 17 thousand people visited us.
Which exhibition was the most popular?
Visitors really liked our poster exhibition entitled The Art Nouveau Revolution in the Gallery, the Barcsay Memorial Year exhibitions in the Ferenczy and Kmetty Museums, and the Czóbel Museum’s 2025 rearranged exhibition. The most visited has been the Margit Kovács Ceramics Museum for decades, which of course adds to the fact that it is open every day of the week. However, last fall, it was overtaken by two of our excellent exhibitions in the MűvészetMalom, the group exhibition entitled The Edge of Mercury with artists from Szentendre and the exhibition by László Krasznahorkai. Due to popular demand, we have extended both until the beginning of the year.
The news that László Krasznahorkai won the Nobel Prize in Literature this year, how much did it increase the number of visitors?
The exhibition titled Minduntalan attracted crowds in June and August, because our literary historian Zsófia Júlia Szilágyi created an exceptionally high-quality and special exhibition, and I must also highlight the exhibition’s graphic designer, Tímea Andorka, who created a unique visual world. The highest number of visitors was indeed in October, when the excellent writer was awarded the Nobel Prize, but the other periods also brought record attendance in the museum’s life.
How much do the Szentendre festivals contribute to the increase in summer visitor numbers?
It is clear that we can reach many more visitors with colorful, attractive programs. The number of visitors to the Szentendre Museums Night was more than double compared to the previous year. We awaited the audience with exhibition openings, a Midsummer Night’s Eve museum marathon, an astronomical stand-up, a local history walk, a scent-image game, creative, artistic programs and unique concerts. In addition, this time we joined the city’s most popular summer closing event series, the Szentendre Open Day and Night Festival, when not only the exhibition spaces, but also the museum courtyards were opened to creative, literary, musical, performance, film and theater programs. But it is worth highlighting that in September we were able to participate in the prestigious Budapest Contemporary Fine Arts Exhibition and Fair, giving a taste of our collection and the rich range of our art publications.
How many exhibitions did visitors see in Szentendre museums last year?
We had a total of 24 exhibitions, in addition to the permanent or previously open exhibitions, we opened another 16 exhibitions. During the summer, visitors could see 12 of our exhibitions simultaneously in the museums of Szentendre.
How many programs were organized last year?
We offered more than 230 programs, and we also tried to shape visitor habits. Although we have been introducing our ticket structure for years, which allows you to visit all of our museums in one day, a real breakthrough has now occurred. Museumgoers are now better acquainted with our offerings, so they plan their programs even more, and spend more time exploring the museums, since with one admission ticket they can wander through up to a dozen exhibitions in one day – if they can handle the soufflé. Obviously, the many exhibitions with different themes are uninhabitable in such a concentration, but visiting three exhibitions together can be a truly high-quality cultural dessert on the table of local, domestic and international tourism.
What exhibitions is the Ferenczy Museum Center preparing for 2026?
This year, we will not let art lovers sleep in their winter sleep, because we are trying to shake up cultural life with 4 exhibitions at the beginning of the year. On the Day of Hungarian Culture, January 22, we will open our rearranged collection exhibition at the Ferenczy Museum. We keep more than two million objects in our collections, our curators have selected from this vast material, and the exhibition will offer the public very exciting perspectives. We will also allow visitors to play and observe, helping them to absorb it with interactive discovery experiences. The exhibition will present more than 150 works by 100 artists. We will continue our series of chamber exhibitions entitled Phantom Thread – In Search of Artists’ Wives: from January we will present the life journey of Olga Fialka, the wife of Károly Ferenczy, and from September we will present the life journey of Mária Modok, the wife of Béla Czóbel. At the end of January, an exhibition will open at the MűvészeMalom, selected from the collection of László Gerő and the FMC, and in February, a joint exhibition by János Aknay, József Baksai, Péter Bereznai, János Kalmár, Győző Sárkány and Tamás Szabó entitled Intermediate Spaces will be opened there.
What to expect from spring?
This year, the Old Artists’ Colony of Szentendre is 100 years old, and on this occasion, a large-scale jubilee exhibition will open at the MűvészeMalom from May, with more than two hundred works according to our plans. This will be complemented by a local history exhibition in the Gallery, which will also open in spring. The exhibition of sculptor Tamás Asszonyi will be on view from the summer, and the exhibition entitled Angyal szállt el, which deals with the art of Imre Ámos and contemporary reflections, will also open in the summer. This year we are organizing NESTArt – Szentendre Summer Artist Base for university students, which will close with an exhibition, and in the fall the Czóbel Museum will open with a new layout, where this time we can get to know the common threads of the work of Béla Czóbel and Ferenc Hatvany. We will open a special exhibition in the Szentendre Art Gallery in November, with the working title Art is a non-prescription medicine, and we hope that this and all our exhibitions will help our visitors relax and recharge.