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8/12/2017

Meller, Peter - MNG Budapest

Passion and irony
The exhibition presents a special side of art historian 



that is familiar for only a few people. Besides his scientific career, Meller was a passionate draughtsman and made prints with a technique he invented himself. The show displays his most beautiful graphic works, a selection of some seventy pieces from his estate and from private collections.
Peter Meller was born in a Budapest family of intellectuals. His uncle Simon Meller was also an art historian. Peter studied classical philology and art history at the university of Budapest. Following his graduation he was awarded scholarships in Zurich and in Rome, afterwards he briefly worked at the Museum of Fine Arts’ Department of Classical Antiquities in 1948. He was curator of the museum’s Sculpture Collection from 1949 until 1957, when he emigrated with his family. After living in Vienna and Florence for about a decade, he accepted professorship at the University of California in Santa Barbara in 1968 and moved to the USA. Meller became an internationally recognised scholar of Italian Renaissance art, he taught art history at the renowned institution until his retirement.
Meller regularly created prints and drawings but only had them exhibited on a few occasions during his lifetime – he did not aspire to make a name for himself as a graphic artist. His artistic œuvre comprising several thousand pieces was only catalogued after his death. His graphics were exhibited in 2012 in Santa Barbara and in 2013 in London; this is the first time that they are shown to the Hungarian public. (22.06.2017 - 03.09.2017) (Text: MNG Budapest)