MaNDAHungarian National Digital Archive

"I love my beautiful craft, which always brings me joy and sustains my faith that, through the talents I have been given, I am serving a worthy cause." Thus reads the motto of Károly Reich, graphic artist and book illustrator. One of the leading figures of the “golden generation” of graphic artists that emerged in the 1960s, Reich created a body of work marked by classical influences and playful harmony. He was not only a defining illustrator of literary classics published in the 1960s and 1970s, but also of numerous beloved children's books.

What happened after the painters stepped out of the studio? The Nagybánya Artists’ Colony did not stop with its foundation. The next generation shaped Hungarian painting further through colour, light, and their own artistic vision. In the second part of our virtual exhibition series, we explore how the initial rebellion evolved into a rich and diverse artistic tradition.

The library, the nearby pub, the park two streets away – not our home, not our workplace, but a third place where we can see and meet people different from those we usually encounter in the first two. The idea may seem simple, yet for many this so-called third place is absent from their lives, or it exists only as a brief detour, without interaction. But what exactly are these places, what do we gain from them, and what do we lose if they are missing from our surroundings?

By the end of the 19th century, most Hungarian painters studied in Munich, where academic painting dominated artistic training. Hollósy and his circle, however, broke away from these conventions, embracing direct observation of nature and the sincere expression of human emotion. This virtual exhibition presents the birth of the Nagybánya Artists’ Colony and its defining figures, with particular emphasis on how this community became one of the starting points of modern Hungarian painting.

The Hangya Cooperative was founded in 1896 by Count Sándor Károlyi, one of the leading figures of the Hungarian economic and cooperative movement. The cooperative quickly grew into a nationwide network and played a significant role in modernizing the rural economy. For half a century, Hangya was the most successful example of Hungarian collective organization, starting from an economic foundation and uniting the broadest layers of society, effectively reaching nearly every settlement in Hungary and throughout the Carpathian Basin region.