The Komáromi Klapka György Múzeum

The Komáromi Klapka György Múzeum (the Klapka György Museum, Komárom, Hungary) holds the largest single collection of György Rauscher’s work, ten original paintings and thirteen reproductions made in 1930, and is the institutional centre of Rauscher scholarship. Its director, Számadó Emese, wrote the 2019 monograph that this archive draws on throughout. The collection is the documentary heart of Rauscher’s surviving oeuvre, and the museum is the natural first stop for any institution or scholar seeking access to his work.

The collection

The museum’s Rauscher holding is ten original paintings and thirteen reproductions made in 1930 (/bibliography#szamado-2019, p. 4). It was built over decades: gifts from the painter’s elder brother László Rauscher during his lifetime, the bequest of the studio estate’s remainder on László’s death in 1997, and one purchase. Because László was childless and guarded the estate intact for almost seventy years, the museum’s collection is continuous with the painter’s own studio holdings rather than reassembled from the market.

Számadó Emese’s scholarship

Számadó Emese, the museum’s director, wrote the 2019 monograph Rauscher György, az új tárgyiasság és a gáláns világ festője (“Rauscher György, painter of the new objectivity and the galant world”), published by the museum as volume XXVIII of its catalogue series (ISBN 978-615-5588-11-2). It consolidates and supersedes the earlier scholarship of Gálig Zoltán and Dr. Zsembery Dezső, reproduces the full 118-work catalogue of the 1935 Nemzeti Szalon estate exhibition, and is the source against which this archive checks every claim. It is the first source in the archive’s source hierarchy and is cited throughout the /bibliography.

Present-day display

Rauscher’s work has been shown in the museum’s anniversary exhibitions, including the 2019-2020 ninetieth-anniversary programme that accompanied the monograph, and is associated with the Brigetio Heritage Visitor Centre in Komárom. Visitors wishing to see the collection should contact the museum directly.

A note on this page

I visited the museum in September 2020 and met Számadó Emese; the photograph above is from that visit. The archive rests on her scholarship and on the museum’s care of Rauscher’s work.