Made in Asia. The Centenary of the Ferenc Hopp Museum of Asiatic Arts

Our exhibition titled Made in Asia. The Centenary of the Ferenc Hopp Museum of Asiatic Arts displays the best pieces in the collection of the hundred-year-old Hopp Museum. The show portrays the great periods in the museum’s history, spanning from the interwar period linked to the institution’s first director, art historian Zoltán Felvinczi Takács, to the period of Buddhist exhibitions, linked to Mária Ferenczy, a renowned sinologist, who passed away in 2017.
The more than 500 artefacts – including temporarily displayed pieces – are arranged according to the most important periods in the museum’s history. The display allows an insight into how – based on what opportunities and collecting criteria – the most representative items and groups of objects entered the collection. In order to protect the condition of the artefacts selected for the exhibition, in some cases we introduced quarterly replacements of certain items or groups of items. The exhibition also gives tribute to the prominent figures in the museum’s history: directors and staff members who played a key role in maintaining the operation of the museum and in shaping its collecting activity in those periods in the twentieth century that were fraught with tragedies in Hungary (and across the world). Visitors are given an opportunity to get acquainted with the often adventurous stories of the highest quality pieces, allowing a unique opportunity to ponder twentieth-century history in the context of the Asian artefacts of a Hungarian museum.

Besides the centennial exhibition, there are more surprises to come. The publication of a gap-filling reference book about the history of the Hopp Museum’s collections and the descriptions of its most prominent artefacts is closely linked to the jubilee year (the volume will be available both in English and in Hungarian). The near future will also see the publication of the special jubilee edition of our Portable Museum Education Library, which will be devoted to the life and work of Ferenc Hopp, while a bilingual volume presenting the history of the Hopp Villa and its garden and illustrated with archival photographs will come out in the autumn.
We always try to bring the museum’s seasonal exhibitions close to the public by organising a diverse range of events. This year in addition to the usual guided tours and museum education workshops, we will even open an open-air cinema in the garden for the summer. Prime importance will be attached to some outstanding anniversaries of Asiatic cultures such as the hundred-fiftieth anniversary of Japanese–Hungarian diplomatic relations, the hundred-fiftieth anniversary of Mahatma Gandhi’s birth, the seventieth anniversary of the founding of the People’s Republic of China, and the thirtieth anniversary of Korean–Hungarian diplomatic relations.

Celebrate the centenary of the Hopp Museum with us!

Curators: Dr Györgyi Fajcsák, Virág Hársvölgyi