Budapest’s Golden Age: Period Photos in the National Gallery
Budapest: The First Golden Age Revisited in New Exhibition at Hungarian National Gallery
The Hungarian National Gallery in Budapest is hosting a new exhibition featuring stereoscopic and postcard photographs from the collections of Fortepan and Deutsche Fotothek, showcasing the first golden age of the city.
The exhibition recalls the period when Budapest was one of the most dynamically developing cities in the world at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries, making it a truly golden age. László Baán, the museum’s director general, described the exhibition as “very exciting, very multilayered, playful and informative, and very spectacular at the same time.”
The Fortepan team discovered previously unknown negatives of Budapest city photographs by a German postcard company, Brück & Sons, in the collection of the Deutsche Fotothek in Dresden. The exhibition presents an exciting selection of these photographs, providing an idea of the evolution that Budapest went through at the beginning of the 20th century.
The postcard photographs are complemented by the work of Frigyes Schoch, a wealthy entrepreneur and hobby photographer who captured the capital in unique stereoscopic photographs. Schoch’s photographs depict Budapest as a cosmopolitan city from a private perspective, showing buildings and sites that have been significantly altered or destroyed in the Second World War.
The final section of the exhibition features contemporary images displaying how much and in what ways Budapest has changed in the 100 years since its first Golden Age, offering visitors a glimpse into the city’s transformation.
The exhibition is open to the public from November 15 to February 18, providing a unique opportunity to explore the rich history and development of Budapest through a captivating collection of historical photographs.
For more information, visit the Hungarian National Gallery’s website.
