Fine Arts Collection

The fine art collection of the museum had been based on the gifts of János Tornyai in 1936. By his nearly one thousand piece donation, he wanted to thank the city for the esteem it manifested towards him. In the summer of 1936, János Tornyai first donated 89 paintings, then 830 paintings and drawings to the town in the framework of two gift contracts. Following the painter's death on the 20^th September 1936, his inheritance was hard to come by, the city even had to get involved in a lengthy litigation with the widow, but finally, the artist’s last will was fulfilled.

The new director in charge after 1946 was Miklós Galyasi, who multiplied the museum’s art exhibitions and enriched its collections. In 1954, György Kohán made an arrangement with the museum, according to which it framed the painter’s works and in return the institution received a portion of his collection.

In 1954 the museum opened its first Autumn Exhibition at Hódmezővásárhely, which is up to date the institution’s most attended temporary exhibition. Its importance was enhanced by the custom of the Ministry of Culture to purchase 20-30 works presented at this exhibition and hand them over to the museum. As a consequence, the collection housed more and more work of arts of city associated artists.

In 1961 János Dömötör (1922-2009) was appointed director of János Tornyai Museum. Dömötör’s outstanding art-organization work led to the bloom of fine arts in the museum. During his four decades at the head of the institution he organized exhibitions, he purchased a number of works of art and published in this topic.

When speaking of artistic legacies, we must emphasize on the 46 works of Menyhért Tóth (1904-1980), which were donated to the museum by the artist’s widow, Angéla Lándori in 1981. This gesture was initiated by the fact that after Tóth has spent more than twenty years in recluse, the museum organized his first solo exhibition in 1964, which led him back to public artistic life. Today, his legacy can be seen at the permanent exhibition in the Great Plain Gallery.

In 1991, following the retirement of János Dömötör, art historian Imre Nagy took over the management of the institution. His professional activity assured the continuity of high level management of the artistic legacy until the beginning of 1999, when he became scientific deputy director at the Csongrád County Museums’ Board of Directors.

Imre Nagy leaving the museum, ethnographer and museologist Vera Nagy took his place, introducing new fields of museology, as well as pursuing the organization of the regular temporary art exhibitions to which she added new ones, such as the summary expositions of the meantime started symposia (ceramics, fine art, photography). The new publication series of the museum (Museum Műhely) included fine art as well, publishing the study of Erzsébet Fülöp on Mária Kovács in 2003.

From 2006, the Autumn Exhibition had been relocated to the ground-floor premises of the Alföld Gallery which is a more appropriate place for a large scale fine art exhibition. The collection is growing each year by occasional individual donations and by purchasing works of art off these exhibitions.

Currently, the art collection has 3743 pieces.