From the very beginning, the Petőfi Museum of Literature, which is 70 years old this year, has placed emphasis on collecting the portraits of Hungarian writers, including photographs. The Museum’s Art Collection has an iconographic compilation of such portraits comprising some 40,000 items. The exhibited selection gives an insight into the prominent figures of literature, as well as the outstanding artists of Hungarian photographic history. A long journey has led from the earliest photographs to today’s digital prints. Besides the technical developments, the change in styles can also be traced: from rigid, objective depiction to the complex representation of the soul. We can explore whether the portraits of writers from the 1850s to the present day enable us to get closer to the writers beyond their poses by looking into their eyes.
The structure of the exhibition is unusual. Successive exhibitions can be seen under the same main title at two different times. The first (27 April 2024 – 24 June) focuses on archive portraits of writers, while in the second (27 June 2024 – 31 January 2025) the emphasis is on portraits by photographers working in museums.
Portraits of writers by museum photographers (27 June 2024 – 31 January 2025)
The photographs were taken for PML by Zoltán Berekméri, Bálint Flesch, László Bókay, Zsolt Dobóczi, László Gábor Belicza, Csaba Gál and Zsolt Birtalan.
In PML generations of photographers have succeeded one another enriching the visual tableau of literature for many decades. Their daily work has included capturing art objects, making reproductions, photographing exhibitions and literary events and locations, and taking photographs of publications, as well as producing portraits of writers. From the 1980s onwards, museum portraits proliferated as the relationship between contemporary authors and the museum became closer. An increasing number of literary events were held with their involvement and the appearance of writers at these events, as well as the purposefully organised photo shootings created ever new opportunities for taking portraits of writers.
Curators: Ida Kovács and Aranka Kemény literary museologists
Graphic design: Andrea Csuport
Visual design: György Mihalkov
Photo gallery
