Vali Rácz, a star of Hungarian entertainment industry shining in the period between the world wars would be 100 years old on 25 December 2011. During the change of social system, a document collection about the life of the artist was acquired by the Somogy County Museum.

This exhibition about the star of the past offers a lot of new information to all of us. And all this is done, as it is about entertainment industry, entertaining. Vali's repertory makes up functional content for the topic. A lot of films, radio- and LP recordings, as well as a TV program about her invite the visitors to learn more about the past. Through the work of Monica Porter, we recall the horror of the times between 1944-45.

Vali Rácz lived from 1911 to 1997, in a very unusual century, from the last years of the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy to the first years of post socialism. He lived in the heart of the country; she witnesses the crucial historic events. When we consider her career as an artist, we have to observe history in the background. We may understand more about the life of our grandmothers and great-grandmothers. Some of them were born when Hungary was ruled by Franz Joseph, or lived in Hungary that was already mutilated in Trianon, or lived through the horror of world wars, even fought in them. Then, in the 1940s they had to face hardship in the Rákosi Era. In 1956 Vali Rácz emigrated. She and her husband, the writer Péter Halász together with their two children, left the country. It may have felt some kind of a compensation for Vali when she returned to Hungary. For her husband, Péter (he was the ex-head editor of the Free Europe Radio), the new era of democracy came too late.

The objective of the exhibition is to show the life and career of Vali Rácz from as many angles as possible, and also to make this extraordinary artist more popular.

Dr. Éva Varga, historian-museologist, the director of the exhibition.