Ludwig Museum Budapest - Museum of Contemporary Art

The collection is especially rich in works by American Pop-Art artists, and by German, French and North American artists active in the 1980s. It also surveys Hungarian art in the 1990s.

Ludwig Museum is the only museum of contemporary art in Hungary to collect international art. The museum was founded by the Hungarian cultural government in 1989. The collection was established with 70 pieces of contemporary art donated by Irene and Peter Ludwig. This gift was completed with 91 pieces in 1991 as permanent loans. The first independent exhibition of the new museum was also opened in 1991 in Building ‘A’ of the Royal Palace.

In 1996 the institution became the Museum of Contemporary Art, and saw an extensive growth in the Hungarian section of the collection.

On the third floor a selection of the collection from the end of the 1960s to the early 1990s is displayed. The series of pictures is opened by three significant late Picasso paintings. The selection contains valuable pieces of American Pop Art, i.e. the works of Andy Warhol, Roy Lichtenstein, Claes Oldenburg and Jasper Johns; and significant works of hyperrealism, i.e. Chuck Close, Malcolm Morley and Richard Estes.

The artworks by Ilona Keserü, László Lakner, Krisztián Frey and György Jovánovics representing Eastern-European avant-garde from the 1960s and 70s, the geometric, minimalist works of the seventies (Imre Bak) and the international New Painting of the eighties (A.R. Penck, Georg Baselitz, Markus Lüpertz and László Fehér, Ákos Birkás and others) will show parallelly with the Western tendencies. Works of Fluxus.

Conceptual Art and Action Art are displayed through the works of Joseph Beuys, Arnulf Rainer, Miklós Erdély and Tibor Hajas. In addition, unofficial Eastern-European art before the changing of the political system is represented by the works of Soviet Non-Conformist artist (Tatjana Nazarenko, Jurij Lejderman).