This year, the Ferenczy Museum Centre of Szentendre will be featured as the only museum at Budapest Contemporary, introducing its diverse activities and extraordinary collection at the exhibition and fair between 25 and 28 September 2025. Visit Bálna (the Whale on the Danube) in Budapest to see portraits of women in our collection together with award-winning publications and the best of Szentendre’s art scene.

The Ferenczy Museum’s collection counts some 10,000 items, including artworks, archaeological and ethnographic artefacts, as well as objects of literary and local history. With a total area of around 4500 square metres, the ten exhibition spaces in Szentendre not only showcase the collection, but also present the finest art created in the town and the country. Alongside the exhibition that draws on the collection, there is now one that takes a look at Krasznahorkai’s prose; eleven Szentendre-based contemporary artists explore the mysteries of Mercury at their group show; and there are displays dedicated to the work of Béla Czóbel, Lajos Vajda and Jenő Barcsay, who was born 125 years ago.

This year’s BCT focuses on Hungarian and international female artists, whose influence on the trend of the scene is happily growing. With this in mind, the Ferenczy Museum Centre is proud to present two outstanding participants of FMC’s NESTArt – Szentendre’s Summer Art Base, which hosted young artists: Virág Kiss and Detty Szabó will each be featured with a new work inspired by Barcsay. Their speciality is that you can walk through and touch them, and they even smell pleasant. The museum lays great store by supporting talented young artists and their careers, and in 2025 it launched a call for applications to its summer artist colony, open to students from art universities in Hungary and the neighbouring countries. NESTArt seeks to introduce the younger generation of artists to Szentendre’s rich artistic traditions in an experiential manner.

The collection will be represented at the fair by exciting portraits of women, including works by Margit Anna, Noémi Ferenczy, Mária Modok, Pál Miháltz and Lajos Csontó. The portraits include a gas mask from the 1940s, as well as a terracotta sculpture by Margit Kovács entitled Woman’s Head.

In addition to an overview of the rich collection of the Ferenczy Museum Centre, the fair also offers an opportunity to buy artworks created in the museum’s Printmaking Workshop. The Szentendre-based artists whose silk screen prints you can purchase include László Balogh, János Haász, László Hajdú and Ottó Vincze.

You can also browse through and buy the publications of the Ferenczy Museum Centre, including Veszélyes csillagzat alatt – Az Európai Iskola (1945–1948) [Under an Ominous Sign – The European School, 1945–1948] which in 2024 won the Beautiful Hungarian Book Prize and the President of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences’ Special Prize.

The museum also wants to use the occasion of the exhibition to improve the condition of its collection and is organizing a collection, the proceeds of which will be used to restore Imre Ámos’s works for a future exhibition. From 1936, the artist began to represent ‘subjective dreamscapes and visions,’ thanks in part to the influence of Chagall, whom he came to meet in Paris. Cocks, ladders, angels and fires are some of the many symbols that appear in his works, painterly metaphors whose meanings are yet to be unravelled. The tragic historical events of the 1940s, the bitter experience of the months spent in labour service, changed the mood of his art. The colours became darker, the contours of objects and human figures became oppressive bonds. His paintings depict the harrowing experience of war with dramatic power.

Budapest Contemporary burst into the scene three years ago and immediately became one of the capital’s most important art events. There was, it turned out, a huge demand for an event where galleries can show their latest offerings and where professionals, collectors and the public can meet. The four-day Budapest Contemporary is brought to Bálna Budapest by the organizers whose brainchildren include Art and Antique, which was launched seven years ago, and Füred Art Week, which has seen its second instalment. This year, BCT will be bigger than ever, with a larger area, international exhibitors, guided tours and side events for its thousands of visitors.