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Founded in 1951 and reorganized in 1971, the History and Art County Museum, began with 2 permanent exhibitions: of history and popular art. Later on, a well-known artist of the time, Ioan Sima - born in Pericei (Salaj county) - donated his personal painting collection, on the condition to be preserved in a proper place, being the central place of a memorial museum. The county leadership offered the building on the Gheorghe Doja Street no. 6 to the county museum. On 9 July 1981, a new section of the museum was inaugurated and was named the Ioan Sima Arts Gallery. The Arts Gallery exhibited in 1981 Ioan Sima’s paintings in seven large rooms properly organized to offer a proper space to museum activities. But soon the space proved to be too cramped and the organization of other personal or group exhibitions was practically impossible. In 1983, the museum was offered 8 more rooms, now having a larger exhibition space. On the 1981 opening of the gallery, the museum already owned important paintings and sculptures. The central point of attraction was the collection of 162 paintings and graphic items forming the Ioan Sima Collection. Later on the artist donated 40 more paintings, his furniture items, popular art items, his personal archive and other personal objects. His niece, Maria Margareta Botezatu, donated a part of the paintings offered by her uncle. The gallery permanently exhibits his most representative works of art. It also contains works of the Romanian artists Corneliu Baba, Aurel Ciupe, Rudolf Schwitzer Cumpana, Petre Abrudan, Alexandru Mohi, Paul Sima, Ioan Mitrea, the most important operas coming from the painting schools in Cluj, Baia Mare, Timisoara and Oradea. The collection was enlarged by the donations made by the contemporary artists Teodor Botis, Victor Gaga, Vasile Pop Negresteanu, Eugen Patachi, Aurel Contras, Gheorghe Ilea, Marcel Munteanu and their students. A great collection of Lepidoptera and Coleoptera – bought by the museum from Tokacs Adalbert, a passioned Zalau collectioner - is housed at the entrance of the gallery. The etymological collection (constituted through the collector’s efforts to gather and classify local and universal species) offers the public a foray into the natural science. The staff organizes concerts, instrumental recitals (especially piano recitals) or other events.
Art and History Museum Zalau
In 1926, the first exhibition was organized, demonstrating the oldness and continuity of the inhabitants in these places. The museum was inaugurated in 1951 and it developed throughout the years, owning today more collections and more than 90,000 items exhibited: coins, Roman-Dacian statues, Middle Age, Modern and Contemporary documents and items of Romanian popular art, sculptures and paintings. The history department consists mainly of archeological collections (20,000 items), showing almost all the stages of a human living in the area (cave painting 100,000 years old, Bronze Age, the Dacian and Roman time). Among other sculptures the lapidary contains the statue of the Carracalla Emperor. The ethnographic department contains wooden, textile, glass pottery items, folk costumes in the Salaj area, etc. The arts department contains painting, graphic and sculpture collections belonging to the artists Aurel Ciupe, Romulus Ladea, Petre Abrudan, Nagy Imre
The ancient Roman city of Porolissum is one of the largest and best-preserved archaeological sites in modern-day Romania. In 2024 the site was added to UNESCO's world heritage list as "Frontiers of the Roman Empire - Dacia".