László Baán (born 18 July 1961 in

Budapest Budapest is the Capital city, capital and List of cities and towns of Hungary, most populous city of Hungary. It is the List of cities in the European Union by population within city limits, tenth-largest city in the European Union by popul ...

) is a Hungarian

economist An economist is a professional and practitioner in the social sciences, social science discipline of economics. The individual may also study, develop, and apply theories and concepts from economics and write about economic policy. Within this ...

and museum curator. Baán has been Director General of the Museum of Fine Arts in

since 2004 and since 2011 has also been director of a new national collection of buildings at the museum.

Education and career

Baán graduated in Economics and Science in

. Between 1998 and 2004 he served as secretary of state of the Ministry of National Cultural Heritage. In 2004, he was appointed him as Director General of the Museum of Fine Arts. In 2007, the

Van Gogh Vincent Willem van Gogh (; 30 March 185329 July 1890) was a Dutch Post-Impressionist painter who is among the most famous and influential figures in the history of Western art. In just over a decade, he created approximately 2,100 artwork ...

exhibition was the 15th most popular exhibition in 2010 in its category, with a total of 231,000 visitors in the world's seventh most visited exhibition in 2010, according to

The Art Newspaper ''The Art Newspaper'' is a monthly print publication, with daily updates online, founded in 1990 and based in London and New York City. It covers news of the visual arts as they are affected by international politics and economics, developments i ...

. The institution has been among the 100 most visited museums in the world several times in recent years. In October 2007, the Museum of Fine Arts Museum launched a museological journal called Café, which became the magazine of the year in 2009 and won the third prize in the

European Design Awards The European Design Awards, also known as the ED-Awards, are annual awards presented to European designers for outstanding work in the communication design field. The ED-Awards is a joint initiative of design magazines from across Europe and endors ...

in 2011. Under his leadership, an underground expansion of the Museum of Fine Arts was planned. The museum has submitted a successful EU grant application for the nearly four billion forints investment. The public procurement application was planned for the construction in early 2011, but the investment was stopped by the government in February 2011. In 2012, he was appointed as Director of the National Gallery of Hungary due to the unification with the Museum of Fine Arts. He is a member of the

European Academy of Sciences and Arts The European Academy of Sciences and Arts (EASA, ) is a transnational and interdisciplinary network, connecting about 2,000 recommended scientists and artists worldwide, including 38 Nobel Prize laureates. The European Academy of Sciences and ...

Controversies

As Director General of the Museum of Fine Arts, he made the museum for free in 2007 for

Árpád Habony Árpád Habony (born 1968) is a Hungarian entrepreneur, oligarch and longtime unofficial advisor to Viktor Orbán. He has been referred to as the "unacknowledged spin doctor" of Orbán, but his exact position is not formally stated. He is credite ...

's wedding, at which he was the witness. In the early 2010s, the Museum of Fine Arts borrowed ten valuable antique paintings to a Serbian street apartment, which was linked to Árpád Habony.

Awards

In 2011, the French Minister of Culture

Frédéric Mitterrand Frédéric Mitterrand (21 August 1947 – 21 March 2024) was a French actor, screenwriter, producer, and politician who served as Minister of Culture and Communication of France from 2009 to 2012 under President Nicolas Sarkozy. Early life ...

awarded Baán with the knightly degree of art and literary order of the French Republic. In 2017, he was awarded the Knights of Honor for his work on the development of cultural relations between France and Hungary.

References

1961 births Living people Hungarian economists People from Budapest Directors of museums in Hungary {{Hungary-scientist-stub