Agria 38. (Az Egri Múzeum Évkönyve - Annales Musei Agriensis, 2002)

Vécsi Nagy Zoltán: A hatvani Hatvany Lajos Múzeumról

Zoltán Vécsi Nagy The Lajos Hatvány Museum in Hatvan The Hatvan Museum was founded by the Hatvan Municipal Council on 1

st January 1969. On 1

st July 1970 it came under the auspices of the Heves County Museums Service. The Museum's foundation document stipulated four collecting and study areas: archaeology, ethnography, the visual arts and local history. The areas covering local history and archaeology lay close to the heart not only of the founder and museum director, architect Gyula Doktay, but local teachers Gábor Németi and Lóránd Szántó. In 1968 private collections formed the basis of the museum. In the first instance these were kept in Grassalkovich Palace on a temporary basis, before being transferred to the changing rooms of the open-air theatre in 1972. The museum exhibited in vaulted premises in Kossuth tér. Despite being an atmospheric exhibition space its size meant it was only suitable for temporary exhibitions. In 1973 Ákos Kovács was made curator of the museum. He was interested primarily in objects of ethnographic interest and other related areas, as well as contemporary Hungarian art. At that time the museum's pioneering initiatives in the field of ethnography and contemporary art received neither the publicity nor the exhibiting possibilities they deserved from the authorities in Budapest. The Lajos Hatvány Museum supported "3Tkultúrpolitika" which offered exhibition possibilities for tolerated, banned and discriminated artists such as Dezső Korniss, György Román, József Jakovits and Béla Veszelszky. The museum did a lot for local museological endeavour. Relations with the Hatvány family became ever closer, a process which ultimately led to the museum becoming known as the Lajos Hatvány Museum when it received a substantial number of paintings, books and other items of great value from Lajos Hatvany's widow. The museum grew further with the arrival of Anna Lesznai and her husband Tibor Gergely's valuable bequest sent from New York. It was during this period that the Hatvány Lajos Múzeum Füzetek first appeared, a publication which now appears regularly. Ákos Kovács left the museum on 31

st December 1983. During Klára Bolyki's curatorship the palace sculpture fragments were deposited in the museum and it was then that Sándor Bojár's photo negatives of the palace were purchased. In 1986 the museologist Gábor Kovács, a graduate in history and philosophy, took over as head of the museum. During his curatorship the institution was able to work in better surroundings, in a building situated in the courtyard of the town hall. During Gábor Németi's period as curator (1989-1992) greater emphasis was put on the local collections. The appointment of László Horváth in 1993 brought a new lease of life to the museum. This was 133