PsyArt Collection of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences

Árpád Selig as an assistant physician at the Mental and Neurological Clinic in Lipótmez? started to collect the patients' works of art during the 1920s. The Selig Museum was registered in the official list of museums in 1932. In the 1930s István Zsakó the physician director of Lipótmez? took care of the collection. He enriched it by collecting medical equipments, historical documents on the institution and the researches of the physicians on the relation between mental conditions and art making. The collection suffered a lot during the World War II. The permanent exhibition called Psychiatric Gallery Museum reopened in 1988. In 2007 Lipótmez? (the Hungarian Psychiatric and Neurological Institution) was closed, but the collection was rescued by the Hungarian Academy of Sciences. From 2007 it has been named The Psychiatric Art Collection of the HAS, maintained by The Research Institute for Art History of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences. Two art historians – Judit Faludy and Monika Perenyei – are in charge of curating retrospective exhibitions (involving contemporary artists also) and organizing conferences on the issue of outsider art in art historical, psychiatric historical and cultural context. There is a small exhibition hall for temporary shows, and there are additional rooms for workshops. The works of arts and documents are properly stored and available for researchers.

European collaboration

We would like to expand the scope of our conferences and make them more international by inviting researchers, curators, artists, art trainers and art therapeutists from abroad. We intend to continue to publish the papers of our conferences.

Future visions

Our mission is to cultivate and develop a vivid archive, a centre that can provide possibilities and infrastructure for conducting research and disseminate it on the complex topic of outsider art.