Judit Reigl (Dance of Death exhibition catalogue)

Celebrating the centenary of Judit Reigl’s birth, the Museum of Fine Arts, Budapest presents the last series of drawings by one of the most original artists to emerge in European art after World War II. Reigl’s basic visual language was acquired in her youth, when, in the collections of the Museum of Fine Arts, she discovered many of the paintings that would impact her vision. True to her wishes, the drawings are displayed in concert with some of her favorite paintings from the Budapest museum’s own collection. For almost eight decades Reigl worked in series, developing themes that evoked other themes, with the end of each series coinciding if not overlapping with the start of the next. Judit Reigl Dance of Death offers a remarkable pictorial account of a life of ceaseless creativity, recapping episodes and experiences that stood out in the way that one’s life can be truly understood only with hindsight. Reviving the medieval ritual of the dance of death, Reigl’s final series captures the vanity and the singular, never-to-be-repeated miracle of our fleeting existence. Judit Reigl: Dance of Death, Museum of Fine Arts, Budapest, 25 May – 3 September 2023