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The Institute was established as the Research Group for Art History within the Hungarian Academy of Science in 1969. Its predecessor was the Documentation Center for Art History operating within the framework of the Ministry for Culture. Having become part of the Academy, its main responsibility was to create a general documentation collection. To be able to fulfill these requirements, along with the collections received from the Ministry (Collection of Archival Regestae, Collection of Plaster Copies of Medieval Seals, Lexicon of Hungarian Artists, Archive) other collections had been added to the newly founded institution (Library and Photographic Archive). In 1991 the name of the Institute was changed to Research Institute of Art History. According to the program of reorganization of the academic institutes, our Institute operates as part of the Research Center for the Humanities established in 1 January 2012.
The main public service mission of the Institute is to carry out researches concerning the history of arts in Hungary. The institute carries out its activities as a public service mission using advanced research methods according to the national and international standards of the discipline of art history. Its researchers curate important exhibitions in Hungary and abroad. Main topics of the research projects carried out by the Institute are concerned with the cultural heritage in Hungary, research of sources regarding the art and architecture in Hungary and art theory. The Institute’s basic task is to collect, professionally archive and publish the documents and sources in this regards. The new structure of the Institutes within the HAS however makes possible and necessary the cooperation in interdisciplinary research projects involving the partner Institutes of the Research centre for the Humanities of the HAS and other national and international scientific organizations.
Besides managing research projects and organizing scientific programs the Institute is aiming at publishing the research results in its journal Ars Hungarica. The series Művészettörténeti Füzetek (Cahiers d’histoire de l’art) is published under the auspicies of the Institute. The Acta Historiae Artium, foreign language professional journal of art history, is edited by Ernő Marosi, member of HAS, former director of the Institute. The Hungarian edition of the world's largest artists' lexikon, the 'Artists of the World' [De Gruyter] takes place in our institute. One of our collegues is member of the curatorial board of the European Roma Cultural Foundation (ERCF).
It is a special task of the Institute to operate the Psychiatric Art Collection and to conduct professional and scientific control over the Art Collection of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences.
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