Sz. Kürti Katalin: Munkácsy Mihály élete és kultusza (Békéscsaba. - Békéscsaba, Békés Megyei Múzeumok Igazgatósága, 2004)

The life and cult of Mihály Munkácsy. Resume

The Museum Association, founded in 1899, started the collection of relics and works of art according to its moderate means. The first donor was Munkácsy's widow, Cécile Papier, then Mihály Zsilinszky, and finally one of the heirs, Cecilie Ilges Barnewitz. Fulfilling the widow's last will the heritage was sent to Budapest. From the heritage, the Christ's head sketch for the „Ecce Homo", two paintings about Munkácsy and a large collection of relics were allocated to Békéscsaba. On the basis of this heritage, in 1935 was opened the first Munkácsy memorial room in the museum named after Munkácsy, then the second in 1947 and in 1964 was opened a representative version that contained four own paintings and the deposit of the National Gallery. There were not too many relations between Debrecen and the painter, apart from one visiting in 1868, so the then city obtained its collection by chance. In 1920 Frigyes Déri, an art collector from Vienna, gave the university town an enormous culturo-historical collection including some outstanding Munkácsy-pictures. The town built a representative museum in 1924-26 where the „Ecce Homo", the colour sketch for „Golgota", the „Búsuló Betyár" and the „Női portré" were exhibited in a special room. In Budapest there were memorial exhibitions arranged in 1914 in 1925 (Ernst Museum) and in 1944 (Fine Arts Museum). These were followed by a great exhibition in „Műcsarnok" where the colossal „Ecce Homo" and the „Honfoglalás" were also exhibited. In the fifities the National Gallery opened and took over the Hungarian collection from the Fine Arts Museum. In 1957 his permanent exhibition was opened in the former Kúria (today's Ethnographical Museum). It regularly provided paintings for provincial exhibitions and organized exhibitions all over the world from Prague to Tokyo. Books have a very important role in the painter's popularity. In his lifetime a monography by Dezső Malonyay and Walther Ilges, a book by Géza Feleky (1911) and by K. Sedelmeyer (1914) were published. Later the most important books were written by Béla Lázár, Zoltán Farkas, Károly Lyka and the most remarkable monography by Lajos Végvári (1958). In the last decades the main fosterings of the Munkácsy-cult are two provincial towns: Debrecen and Békéscsaba. The importance of Debrecen came after the 1988 year's Sotheby's auction in New York, where the town obtained two Christ-paintings.