Glimmering reality

A commemorative exhibition of the painter Ernő Nagy (Felnémet, 1926 – Eger, 2017) on the centenary of his birth

There are people whose lives are defined by a kind of longing: a longing for beauty, and for the world and life to form a harmonious whole. Born a hundred years ago, the painter and college professor Ernő Nagy lived in Eger. His paintings, watercolors and drawings, focusing on natural and artistic beauty, are shrouded in quiet melancholy. Most of his attractive oeuvre is about Eger (its baroque splendor) and the landscape surrounding the city – mountains, valleys, babbling streams –, the change of seasons, the micro-existence of trees, bushes and flowers, the effervescence of life.

The painter Ernő Nagy is not only connected to our city by the proximity of his birthplace – he was born in Felnémet, a neighborhood of Eger – but also by his almost seven decades of artistic and pedagogical work. After graduating, he lived in Eger from 1953 and taught at the Drawing Department of the Eger Teacher Training College from 1958 to 1986: he was the head of the department from 1980. As a respected member of the city's artistic community, he was awarded the title of Honorary Citizen of the City of Eger in his old age.

On the occasion of the centenary of his birth, we are organizing a commemorative exhibition of his collected works, entitled Glimmering Reality (“Derengő valóság”) in the Ziffer Sándor Gallery, fine arts exhibition area of the Dobó István Castle Museum. In addition to the legacy preserved by the family, some of his paintings are kept by the Dobó István Castle Museum – in its core collection or as a deposit – but the people of Eger also gladly bought his paintings. The city and county governments have paid tribute to his work for decades, as a large part of Ernő Nagy's attractive oeuvre is about Eger and the surrounding landscape. It has a lyrical tone, and a documentary value as well.

When developing the concept of the exhibition, we placed great emphasis on his oil paintings as well as on his meditative watercolor works, especially on the series made in the 1990s, which immortalizes the emblematic buildings and spaces of the city. In these, the beauty of baroque Eger, the built heritage and worldview of the people of Eger in the past are revealed to us.

In his early works, the family and the proximity environment provided him with pleasant subjects to paint. Attachment to his own – this basic human attitude – permeated his entire art. The experiences brought by family orientation, the everyday life of peasant life, the man busy with his work and his natural environment, the village, the meadow, then the forest, the waterfront, captured in lyrical, melancholic color harmonies, are the most attractive in his oeuvre. From the beginning, his theme has been Felnémet with its row of cellars, orchards, winter silence, and peace, where the view goes beyond aesthetics. They evoke memories. Memories that fill one's heart with warmth even when the cold winter is creaking, when the landscape is covered in white snow. 

The exhibition can be visited: June 20 – September 27, 2026.