Documentary archive

The collection called the "Documentary Fund" was initially formed from paintings that, during the 1950s to 1970s, were considered less valuable artistically and historically, or that entered the patrimony of the Cluj-Napoca Art Museum in a poorer state of preservation. The Fund comprises approximately 300 portraits from the 18th century and the first half of the 20th century. The majority of these portraits depict members of Hungarian noble families, emblematic personalities of Hungarian culture, and mayors of Cluj from the 19th and 20th centuries. Some of these paintings are works by established Hungarian painters (for example, Miklós Barabás and György Vastagh) or by renowned 19th-century Cluj portraitists such as Miklós Sikó, Endre Kőváry, Vince Melka, Endre Marselek, Ferenc Ács, and Gábor Papp.

The authors of the 18th-century portraits are almost unknown; however, among them are the Austrians Johann Georg Weikert and Franz Anton Bergmann, who are represented in the collection with several paintings. Among the lesser-known 19th-century painters whose works are preserved in the Documentary Fund, we mention Ferenc Simó, János Ágotha (portrait of Mihály Vörösmarty), Márton Boér (portrait of György Aranka), Gizella Pataki Spiróné (members of the Pataki family), and Béla Pallik (portrait of Count Imre Mikó).

Besides portraits, the Documentary Fund also includes several other pictorial genres, such as landscapes, a few genre scenes, and biblical compositions created by artists like Amália Dóczyné Berde, Count Géza Andrássy, Zoltán Veress, István Sárdi, and others. The collection also contains several sculptures, such as a series of portraits of Transylvanian princes (made by Mihály Bertha) and works by Ferenc Kolozsvári Szeszák.

Starting in the 1980s, graphic works and sketches by renowned Romanian painters were also included in the Documentary Fund—for example, engravings signed by Theodor Aman, as well as an impressive collection (more than 250 pieces) of graphic sheets, sketches, and study drawings by Octavian Smigelschi.