Within the series of exhibitions of outstanding oeuvres, the Hungarian National Gallery presents a major János Vaszary retrospective. After over four decades, his unique output is again collectively shown to the public; his last one-man show at the National Gallery having been arranged in 1961.

The representative selection comprising over 350 works provides an ample overview of Vaszary's multi-faceted activity, presenting his 50-year-long career from his first wing beats to the fullness he reached as an ageing artist. The paintings, graphics and applied-art works selected from domestic and foreign collections witness his life-long readiness for renewal, his openness to modern tendencies and his ever-youthful spirit at work. Apart from his well-known masterpieces, newly discovered works or ones whose whereabouts were unknown are also on display.

The exhibition begins with an absorbing selection of his early portraits of aristocrats and church commissions and is followed by the panel paintings of the 1900s associated with Art Nouveau and Symbolism, his works in applied arts, his tapestries, posters and book-art masterpieces. Equally illuminating are his formal experiments with Cubism.

After the catharsis of the First World War and his expressive paintings of the 1920s, he formed his delicately decorative style for depicting the bustle of modern city life and the Mediterranean mood of fashionable bathing and seaside resorts. Containing a wealth of coloured illustrations and documents, the scholarly catalogue published for the exhibition treats the artist's theoretical work, his public-professional and teaching activities, as well.

The curators of the exhibition are Mariann Gergely and Edit Plesznivy.