Dream painting – Fabular animals in the National Relic exhibition space

Squirrels peeping through wood panels, beetles decorated with jewels, tabby cats roaming on the back of swallows and cheerful foxes. The National Relic exhibition space of National Széchényi Library is surging with animals, owing to pictures painted by illustrator Eszter Nagy. The artist's creations were born of the imagination, but small animals almost climbing into our palms, or portraits bringing us into the world of oriental fairy tales are recurring motifs.

As the painter recollects, on one occasion she “beheld” a squirrel looking through the wood grains and burrs of a plywood, and that she immediately painted on the wood. By now, many children’s rooms are decorated with an array of animals including hedgehogs, squirrels, birds and rodents. The artist added that she preferred the drawing of foxes and birds to any other of her motifs. Of birds, she likes to paint songbirds, cranes and crows the best.

You can make your own “dream painting” at the exhibition space.

The exhibition will be open until July 26, 2018, Tuesday to Saturday, from 10 a.m. until 6 p.m.
Venue: Floor 5, National Relic exhibition space

Visitors who are not registered readers of NSZL can visit our temporary chamber exhibitions for a flat fee of HUF 400.