The Tornyai János Museum pays tribute to the dominant personality of the Plains school painter József Németh (1928-1994) with its memorial exhibition. The eighty works of art exhibited in the museum are to cover each era of the oeuvre with a selection of works from private and public collections.

József Németh was born in 1928 in Kaposszerdahely but was registered in Szenna, and because of this, in some of his biographies state that his birthday was Szenna. As a member of the family with eight children, he, at the age of twelve, worked on a threshing machine so that his woodworkers father's meagre earnings was not the only income in the family. In 1946 he began working as a painter and decorator apprentice in Kaposvár, he finished his education in 1949. He joined the Kaposvár free art school following his master's encouragement - the same year,. He was noticed there by the teachers Sándor Bortnyik and Gyula Hincz. Encouraged by them, Németh enrolled the College of Fine Arts, where first Gyula Papp then Béla Ban were his tutors. He considered his master in art István Szőnyi. Németh also received a fresco painter diploma. While still in college in Hódmezővásárhely he moved to the summer art colony organized by Iván Szabó. After graduation he settled in the Planes.

He is considered one of the strongest personalities in the history of the Hódmezővásárhely art school' Planes Painting. His work formed and the ripened in a unique historical era. In times when universal human virtues of manual workers, the simple plowmen or shepherds were used for validation of current interest, (too). According to the art historian Imre Nagy who organized the memorial, the uniqueness in the art of József Németh was that the painted on borderline between illusion and iconic imagery. His themes came from former peasant life. His raised horizon compositions depicted human and animal figures in sacred atmosphere. In 1961-he was awarded with the main prize at the Autumn Exhibition in Vásárhely, he was given the Tornyai Plaque three times, was awarded with the Munkácsy Prize, he was a Merited Artist, a Distinguished Artist. In 1989, he was elected honorary citizen of the town of Hódmezővásárhely. He died in 1994.