The Szombathely Art Gallery was opened in 1985. Its establishment was initiated by a foundation the successor of which has been supporting the activities, the library and the individual exhibitions of the - ever since, organizing also different programs.

Before it became an independent institution in 1995, the - had belonged to the museum network organization of the county. The Gallery is a museum collecting works of art nationwide. It organizes 15 to 20 temporary exhibitions, belonging, in this sense to the "Kunsthalle" type of institutions.

The exhibitions feature individual and groups of artists, art tendencies, but there are also frequent thematic exhibitions. The artists come both from Hungary and abroad, and exhibitions inviting artists from several countries are not infrequent, either. A number of our exhibitions start an international tour following their presentation in Szombathely. Some of these target countries included Austria, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Poland, and Germany. We are also active in supporting contemporary Hungarian artists to have an exhibition abroad.

The building has an exhibition area of 2000 square meters. This is divided into three larger areas of 500 square meters, each, and into smaller galleries that provide exhibition areas for smaller, chamber exhibitions. The institution is complete with a well-equipped restorer's workshop, a specialized library of 10,000 volumes and a databank. The building also houses a conference and movie room, as well as a children's activity studio. Due to its ideal features, the gallery often serves as the venue of international receptions, meetings.

Thought there are also older paintings from between the 17th and 19th centuries in its core collection, the majority of the gallery's exhibits, works of art characteristic of the institution as a whole are linked to 20th century Hungarian art. Through the way of collecting and exhibiting works of art, the experts of the gallery aim to present the works of Hungarian artists keeping track with international trends to the visitors and experts. Works of art of this kind represent the early period of Hungarian avantguard (Lajos Kassák and his circle), as well as pop, minimal and concept art having developed significantly in spite of the political oppression. The majority of these artists have already left Hungary for abroad, but they still maintain a close contact with their native country. Among the best known ones of them we can find Endre Tót, an international concept artist, László Lakner, also living in Germany, and Gyula Konkoly who spent a longer period of time working in France.

There are a number of paintings representing the new wave in painting in the 80's, the collecting, however, is focusing now on the activities of the young generation. The works of arts in this field represent a wide range of genres from traditional painting to multimedia installations. The Gallery also houses a contemporary textile art collection of 2500 works. Most of these works of art arrived to the Gallery for the Biannual Textile Exhibitions traditionally organized in Szombathely since 1970. The collection of textile miniatures features an international material that became part of the textile collection of the Gallery as free donation by the artists.

The professional background for the exhibitions is provided by a scientific research work in the field of earlier and contemporary Hungarian art, as well as contemporary international art.