Portraying faces is one of the most ancient themes of art. Cheek by Jowl exhibited more than 380 portraits by courtesy of 10 museums and by permission of 19 private collectors, illustrating various modes and ways of representing and highlighting the different approaches to the genre. Among others portraits by Csontváry, Rippl-Rónai, Mednyányszky, Rudnay, Nagy Balogh, Egry, Berény, Czigány, Tihanyi, Menyhért Tóth, Lajos Vajda, Jenő Barcsay, Dezső Korniss and Anna Margit were exhibited. The conscious grouping of the works threw light upon the hidden relationship of the pieces and revealed the common aspects in the different ways of seeing things in art.
The past 100 years' of Hungarian history, the fate and the fortune, the destiny and the doom, the character and the psychology of a people unfolded through the faces and the suggestive eyes portrayed here.