Weiner Mihályné szerk.: Az Iparművészeti Múzeum Évkönyvei 6. (Budapest, 1963)

HOPP FERENC MÚZEUM - MUSÉE FERENC HOPP - Horváth, Tibor: Report on the Activities of the Ferenc Hopp Museum of Eastern Asiatic Art in the Years 1959—1961

TIBOR HORVÁTH REPORT ON THE ACTIVITIES OF THE FERENC HOPP MUSEUM OF EASTERN ASIATIC ARTS IN 1959 — 1961 In 1959 our Museum celebrated the fortieth anniversary of its foundation. Ferenc Hopp (1833—1919), when he learned of the extraordinary esteem in which the Commissariat for Public Education of the Hungarian Soviet Republic held his collection, bequeathed, in his codicil of July 19, 1919, not only his rich collection for the purpose of a future Museum of Eastern Asiatic Arts (this he had done before) but also his villa and large grounds. We desired to set up a monument in memory of Ferenc Hopp. The Art Section of the Ministry of Culture supported our purpose and entrusted János Konyorcsik with the execution of a memorial statue. Zoltán Felvinczi Takáts, retired professor and first director of our Museum, began writing the biography of Ferenc Hopp. On the occasion of the anniversary we arranged a memorial exhibition in the Museum of Decorative Art called The Art of Asia which opened on August 14, 1959. A detailed description of this exhibition was given by the Assistant Director General, Gyula Major, in the previous volume of our Yearbook (Vol. V. pp. 127—143). Due to the great interest aroused by the exhibition, it remained open to the public until August 15, 1961. The Painting of China was the subject of another exhibition also held in the Museum of Decorative Art, in the first five rooms of the former ceramic exhibition (Figs. 1—2). In selecting the material we presented both the old, „classic", and new national paintings (kuo-hua) of the Chinese people, with the addition of another great art existing within the Chinese border, i. e., the paintings of the Tibetan people. By taking advantage of the possibilities provided, we completed our collection with five Tibetan paintings of the Ethnographical Museum and also by old Chinese pictures preserved in private collections. It was the task of the author of the present report to select the Chinese material, to write the descriptions, to plan and to arrange the exhibition. He was helped to a considerable degree by Edit Tóth, who undertook the arrangement of the Tibetan section, and by László Ferenczy, assisting in the arrangement. The installation work was done by Miklós Jancsek and Gábor Szabó. The exhibition was opened on February 28, 1960 by Lajos Ligeti, VicePresident of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences. It closed on July 1, 1960. Both of our permanent exhibitions: "The Art of India" (in the Ferenc Hopp Museum) and „The Art of Old and New China" (in the China Museum, formerly the György Rath Museum) have undergone minor additions and