The famous Museum of Fine Arts from Budapest has reached its 100th birthday and is celebrating the centenary in style - it's hosting a major exhibition with the works of the genial Vincent Van Gogh. The exhibition will last almost four months, from the 2nd of December 2006 until the 20th of March 2007 and it will be the largest one in the Central European region for a long time - it will feature almost 80 works: 43 paintings, 24 drawings and 10 lithographs from the Dutch master himself and many more signed by other great artists of his time.

Thus, the exhibition will give an outline of the entire lenght of Van Gogh's career and even beyond it, showing the beginnings, the parallels and the results of the life and work of a fascinating figure in the history of art, the Post-Impressionist master Vincent van Gogh. This means a small additional exhibit of old masters such as Wolf Huber, Rembrandt, Delacroix, Caspar David Friedrich, Jean-Francois Millet, and Charles Daubigny, who influenced the development of Van Gogh's art; another parts of the display will contain works by Dutch contemporaries of van Gogh, as well as paintings by early 20th century Hungarian artists (such as Gyula Derkovics and Gyula Czimra) who learned from studying his skills.

Over 40 collections worldwide will contribute to the display, as the works were borrowed from some of the world's leading museums including the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam, Musee D'Orsay in Paris, New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art, and the National Gallery of Art in Washington D.C. The works were insured for a total of 760 million dollars, and they include some of the artist's best-known paintings, such as "Irises" (1890), "L'Arlesienne" (1890), "A Pair of Leather Clogs" (1888), "Self-Portrait With Pipe" (1886) and "Farmhouse in Provence" (1888).

In the scholarly catalogue, which will be published in Hungarian and in English, a section presenting the reception of the works will be accompanied by a selection of critical analyses. Also, in connection with some of the pieces exhibited interesting extracts from Van Gogh's correspondence will also be included.