Large-scale Zsolnay Exhibition Near the City Park

The largest Zsolnay exhibition in Budapest opened on Monday in the ResoArt Villa, one of the most emblematic Art Nouveau buildings in the capital, next to the City Park.

Designed by architect Albert Kálmán Kőrössy for his family in 1899, the villa at the end of the Városliget promenade is one of the finest examples of turn-of-the-century Art Nouveau, with very few buildings of this quality in Europe.

The Art Nouveau villa, art collector András Szabó recalled, was found to have been renovated in an unconventional way after World War II when it was purchased in the 1990s. Research was therefore launched, and the results of this research, together with a number of archive photographs, were used to restore the villa to its former glory in several stages.

The building was used as an office building for a long time, but two years ago it was decided to turn it into an exhibition center to showcase the finest pieces of the rich collection, András Szabó added. One of the most important parts of his collection is the Zsolnay porcelain collection of more than a thousand pieces, of which around five hundred can be seen in the villa.

This is complemented by a collection of around 100 paintings by József Egry, known as the "painter of Lake Balaton", and a selection of works by artists from Rippl-Rónai, the Nagybánya School of Painting and contemporary Szentendre artists, which are also on display at the ResoArt Villa.