Gauguin in Budapest 2026: Bonjour Monsieur Gauguin! at the Museum of Fine Arts
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For four months, the Museum of Fine Arts in Budapest is the place to see Paul Gauguin without going to Paris. Bonjour Monsieur Gauguin!, which opens on 30 October 2026, traces how Gauguin worked his way from Impressionism to the color and myth of his Tahiti canvases. The museum calls it Hungary’s first large-scale Gauguin exhibition: about 150 works, some 80 of them by Gauguin himself, with exceptional loans from the Musée d’Orsay.
Three things make it worth building a day, or a winter weekend, around it:
- The Orsay loans. The museum credits exceptional loans from the Musée d’Orsay in Paris for making the show possible, and the painting the museum has put on its own page is one of them: Tahitian Women (Femmes de Tahiti). It is the one work the museum names, so make it your first stop on the Tahiti section.
- The whole journey in one route. The rooms run in order through the places that changed his painting: Paris, the Île-de-France, Brittany, Arles, Martinique, then Tahiti and the Marquesas Islands. You see the style change room by room rather than as a jump from early to late.
- Gauguin with his circle. Works by Courbet, Pissarro, Monet, Cézanne, van Gogh, Émile Bernard and Paul Sérusier hang in the same show, so you can see the painters he learned from and worked beside.
For the museum itself, its two-hour route through the permanent collection, the bag rules and the cloakroom, see our Museum of Fine Arts guide. This page is about the Gauguin show.
📋 Quick Facts
| Detail | What to know |
|---|---|
| 🖼️ Exhibition | Bonjour Monsieur Gauguin! The Circles of Post-Impressionists and Symbolists |
| 🗓️ Dates | 30 October 2026 to 28 February 2027 |
| 🏛️ Where | Ground floor, temporary exhibition hall, Museum of Fine Arts (Szépművészeti Múzeum) |
| 🕙 Hours | Tuesday to Sunday 10:00 to 18:00, ticket desk and last entry 17:00. Closed Mondays |
| ⚠️ Exceptions | 29 October: 14:00 to 18:00, entry until 17:00. 7 November: 10:00 to 17:00, entry until 16:00. 13 November and 11 December: 12:00 to 20:00, entry until 19:00 |
| 🎄 Holidays | Closed 24 and 25 December; 31 December 10:00 to 16:00, last entry 15:00; 1 January 2027 12:00 to 18:00 |
| 🎫 Full price | 6,800 HUF ( |
| 🎟️ Discounted | 3,400 HUF ( |
| ➕ Included | The permanent collection, on the same day |
| ⏰ Entry | One-hour slots; enter within your hour, then no time limit |
| ⏱️ Time needed | About 1.5 hours, the museum’s estimate |
| 📍 Address | Dózsa György út 41, 1146 Budapest, on Hősök tere (Heroes’ Square) |
| 🚇 Getting there | M1 metro to Hősök tere |
Source: szepmuveszeti.hu Gauguin exhibition page, admission prices and annual opening hours, with the English exhibition page and tickets page on mfab.hu, read on 27 October 2026.
What is in the exhibition
The show follows Gauguin in time order, and it is built to explain one change: how a painter who started out among the Impressionists moved away from them, and from Naturalism, toward pictures where color, shape, myth and symbol carry the meaning together. The museum frames his late work as a search for a lost harmony between people and nature, and the route ends in the South Seas where that search took him.
On the way, the exhibition puts Gauguin next to the painters he worked with and against. The museum’s Hungarian page names Gustave Courbet, Camille Pissarro, Claude Monet, Paul Cézanne, Vincent van Gogh, Émile Bernard and Paul Sérusier. Its English page adds that the show looks closely at his ties to the painters Jens Ferdinand Willumsen and the Hungarian József Rippl-Rónai, and to writers such as Stéphane Mallarmé and August Strindberg. Rippl-Rónai is the local thread, and the Hungarian National Gallery in Buda Castle is where you see more of him.
The Orsay loans
The museum says the exhibition was made possible by exceptional loans from the Musée d’Orsay. Altogether around forty institutions and private collections lent works. Tahitian Women, which the museum shows on its exhibition page, is an Orsay painting. Beyond that one, the museum has not yet published a list of individual loans, so we do not name others here.
Why this show, here
The Museum of Fine Arts has run a series of Impressionist and Post-Impressionist exhibitions for more than twenty years: Monet and his friends, Van Gogh in Budapest, Cézanne and the Past, Cezanne to Malevich, and Renoir: The Painter and His Models. The museum presents Gauguin as the next chapter of that series. The curator is Judit Geskó, academic adviser at the museum and vice-president of the Société Paul Cezanne in France.
Source: szepmuveszeti.hu Gauguin exhibition page and the English exhibition page, read on 27 October 2026.
Tickets and which price applies
| Ticket (includes the permanent collection) | Weekdays | Weekends |
|---|---|---|
| Full price | 6,800 HUF (~$21) | 7,800 HUF (~$24) |
| Discounted, 50% | 3,400 HUF (~$10) | 3,900 HUF (~$12) |
| Group of 15 or more paying tickets, same slot, full price | 6,100 HUF (~$19) on working days | 7,000 HUF (~$22) |
| Group of 15 or more paying tickets, same slot, discounted | 3,100 HUF (~$10) on working days | 3,500 HUF (~$11) |
Prices are in HUF, which is what you pay at the counter. Converted at 1 USD = 324 HUF, the ECB rate on 15 October 2026. Rates move, so treat the converted figures as indicative.
Weekday or weekend. The museum is closed on Mondays, so the lower weekday price covers Tuesday to Friday, and Saturday and Sunday cost 1,000 HUF more. The one exception: from 28 to 31 December the weekday discount is off, and every day costs the weekend price.
Full or discounted. The 50% ticket is only for citizens of the European Economic Area, and of Ukraine as temporary support: ages 6 to 26, ages 62 to 70, and one or two adults arriving with at least two children under 18. You prove age and nationality with a photo ID at the desk. A student card alone does not do it, so a 20-year-old American pays full price. Children under six go free, as do EEA citizens over 70 and visitors with a disability plus one companion; free tickets are issued only at the desk on the day.
One ticket, not two. The Gauguin ticket includes the permanent exhibitions on the same day, so do not buy a separate collection ticket if you are seeing the show anyway. The Budapest Card does not help here: it covers the permanent collection once, but gives no discount on temporary exhibitions. For the permanent collection on its own (5,800 HUF, about $18) and the museum’s full list of concessions, see our Museum of Fine Arts guide.
Time slots and booking
The time printed on a Gauguin ticket is your entry hour. You can go in at any point within that hour, and once inside, nobody times you: stay until closing if you like. You cannot reserve without buying; the ticket is the booking.
Tickets are sold through the museum’s online shop on Jegymester, at the museum’s own ticket desks, and at Eventim outlets. The desks hold back a limited number of tickets for the day, so walking up on a Saturday is a gamble. An advance online ticket lets you skip the ticket desk, though there can still be a security queue at the exhibition entrance.
For its timed exhibitions, the museum’s own advice is an early-afternoon weekday slot, bought online in advance, and to arrive in the second half of your slot rather than on the hour.
When to go
Pick a weekday. It is 1,000 HUF cheaper, and a weekday slot is what the museum itself recommends for its timed shows.
Do not take the last slots. Last entry is 17:00, and the galleries start closing at 17:30. With the museum suggesting an hour and a half for Gauguin alone, a 16:00 slot means rushing the Tahiti rooms at the end. Aim for a slot by 14:00 if you want the permanent collection as well.
Late Fridays. On 13 November and 11 December 2026 the museum opens from 12:00 to 20:00, with last entry at 19:00, for its monthly evening program. If your trip lands on one of those dates, it is a good way to see the show after dark.
Watch the two odd days. On Thursday 29 October, the day before the opening, the museum opens only at 14:00. On Saturday 7 November it closes an hour early, at 17:00, with entry until 16:00.
Over the holidays. The museum is closed on 24 and 25 December, open on 26 December, open 10:00 to 16:00 on 31 December and from 12:00 on 1 January. With the weekend price applying from 28 to 31 December, the week between Christmas and New Year is the priciest time to go. Our guides to Budapest in November, December, January and February cover the weather and what else is on.
Combine it with City Park
The museum stands on the corner of Heroes’ Square, which is free and open at all hours, so walk the colonnade before your slot. Behind the square is City Park, and a short walk across the bridge over the lake takes you to Vajdahunyad Castle, whose courtyards are free to wander.
The natural way to finish a winter afternoon here is a soak. The Széchenyi Baths are one M1 stop further, at Széchenyi fürdő, or a walk through the park. Book a Gauguin slot around midday, give the collection an hour afterward, and you reach the outdoor pools as the light goes.
On a wet day, the show is an easy answer in itself; our rainy day guide has more. To see how the Museum of Fine Arts compares with the city’s other museums by the time they take, read our Budapest museums guide.
Getting there
Take the M1 metro, the small yellow line under Andrássy út, to Hősök tere. The museum is on the square itself, at Dózsa György út 41. The BudapestGO app plans the route from your hotel, and our metro guide covers tickets.
Source: szepmuveszeti.hu admission prices, annual opening hours and Gauguin exhibition page, with the mfab.hu tickets page for concessions, the Budapest Card, entry slots and the museum’s arrival advice, read on 27 October 2026.
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Good to know
When is the Gauguin exhibition in Budapest?
Bonjour Monsieur Gauguin! is on at the Museum of Fine Arts from Friday 30 October 2026 to Sunday 28 February 2027. The museum is open Tuesday to Sunday from 10:00 to 18:00, with last entry at 17:00, and closed on Mondays. On Saturday 7 November it closes at 17:00 (entry until 16:00), and on Fridays 13 November and 11 December it opens at 12:00 and stays open until 20:00 (entry until 19:00). Over the holidays it is closed on 24 and 25 December, open 10:00 to 16:00 on 31 December with last entry at 15:00, and open 12:00 to 18:00 on 1 January 2027.
How much is a ticket to the Gauguin exhibition?
A full-price ticket is 6,800 HUF (about $21) on weekdays and 7,800 HUF (about $24) at weekends. The discounted ticket is 3,400 HUF on weekdays and 3,900 HUF at weekends. Every Gauguin ticket also gets you into the permanent collection on the same day. From 28 to 31 December the weekday price does not apply.
Who gets the discounted Gauguin ticket?
The 50% discount is for citizens of the European Economic Area, and of Ukraine as temporary support, who are aged 6 to 26 or 62 to 70, and for one or two adults visiting with at least two children under 18. You show an ID that proves age and nationality at the desk. Visitors from the US, the UK, Canada or Australia pay full price. Children under six get in free whatever their passport, and so do EEA citizens over 70.
Which Gauguin paintings are in the Budapest exhibition?
The museum has not published a full list. It says the show has about 150 works, some 80 by Gauguin, lent by around forty institutions and collectors, with exceptional loans from the Musée d'Orsay. The one painting it shows on its own exhibition page is Tahitian Women, from the Musée d'Orsay in Paris.
Do I need to book a time slot for Gauguin?
Yes, in practice. Big temporary exhibitions at the museum sell one-hour entry slots, and the time on your ticket is the hour you go in. After that there is no time limit. The ticket desk keeps a limited number of tickets for the day, so buy online in advance if you have fixed travel dates, especially for a weekend.
Is the Gauguin exhibition included in the Budapest Card?
No. The Budapest Card gets you into the museum's permanent exhibitions once, free, but the museum gives no discount on temporary exhibitions with it. For Gauguin you buy the exhibition ticket, which already includes the permanent collection.
How long do you need for the Gauguin exhibition?
The museum suggests about an hour and a half for the exhibition itself. Since the ticket covers the permanent collection too, many visitors will want to add an hour or two upstairs. Last entry is 17:00 and the galleries start closing at 17:30, so a slot after 15:00 leaves little time for anything else.
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