Károly Ferenczy. Modernité Hongroise

Entry valid for 15 minutes, free visiting time. Free for under 18s, unemployed individuals, and those receiving minimum social benefits. Important: reduced rates are only available at the museum's ticket counters. Late opening on Fridays and Saturdays. The museum is closed on Mondays, 1st May, and 14th July.

Károly Ferenczy: Hungarian Modernity Exhibition

From 14 April 2026 to 06 September 2026

As famous in Hungary as he is little known in France, Károly Ferenczy (1862-1917) is a major figure of modernity in Central Europe. His profoundly singular work establishes him as one of the great painters of the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries. With this first French retrospective, the Petit Palais aims to highlight his fundamental originality. Neither naturalist, nor symbolist, nor impressionist, nor Nabis, nor Fauvist, but a little bit of all of these at once, he embodies the cosmopolitanism of the fin-de-siècle in the full extent of his culture. A founding member of an artists' colony established in the heart of Hungarian nature, Ferenczy made plein-air painting one of his most emblematic practices. He advocated the collective as an artistic ideal and sought in nature the expression of a syncretic spirituality. Under his brush, the sun often appears as a central protagonist in landscapes of unparalleled light. With nearly 140 works, the exhibition highlights the multiple facets of the artist's approach — landscapes, portraits, family scenes, biblical subjects, nudes, and caricatures — and reveals the fundamental role of Károly Ferenczy in the emergence of a truly modern artistic school in Hungary. The exhibition was conceived in collaboration with the Museum of Fine Arts, Budapest, and the Hungarian National Gallery.