Budapest Guide
Óbuda and Margit-sziget
Varga Museum
Opening time: Tues– Sun 10am–6pm
Price: 500Ft
Address: Laktanya utca 7
Whatever the weather, you'll see several figures sheltering beneath umbrellas just off Fő tér, life-sized sculptures by Imre Varga, Hungary's best known living artist, whose oeuvre is the subject of the nearby Varga Museum (Varga Imre Múzeum). Pathos and humour pervades his sheet-metal, iron and bronze effigies of famous personages, including Pope John Paul II and Bartók. Varga's career has spanned the eras of "goulash socialism" and democracy – evinced by state-commissioned monuments to Béla Kun (in the Memento Park) and Imre Nagy (near Parliament) – but nobody accuses him of being a hack like Kisfaludi-Strobl.