Collection and resource

Ludwig Museum – Museum of Contemporary Art has a selected and dynamically expanding collection, at the core of which is a donation by Mr. and Mrs. Ludwig. Its collection comprising artworks from the sixties until today, some of them always on display, the museum has a circle of international art collectors as its partners.

Upon the founding of Ludwig Museum in 1989, Peter and Irene Ludwig donated seventy high-value artworks representing international tendencies in the art of the period from the ‘60s through the ‘80s. In 1991 these were followed by 95 pieces for long-term deposit. When the Museum of Contemporary Art was established in 1996, several new artworks were acquired by the museum, illustrating the tendencies of the ‘90s, with special regard to new generations emerging after the regime-change. The progressive Hungarian art of the ‘60s-‘70s is represented through select artworks mainly in parallel with international tendencies. What makes this collection especially noteworthy is its Central- and Eastern European character: the art of a region with peculiar historical and cultural context is emphatically represented through the works of Hungarian, Slovakian, Polish, Romanian and ex-Yugoslav artists.

Owing to the continued acquisitions throughout the past decades, in 2023, Ludwig Museum - Museum of Contemporary Art boasts 1021 artworks and several hundred deposits, part of which are on display at the permanent exhibition. The entire collection is on view in the online database. The acquisition of 20-30 pieces a year is made possible by various grants, mainly through the National Cultural Fund as well as the sponsorship of the Peter und Irene Ludwig Stiftung.

Authors