The collection of 20 items was donated by Jill-Curtis Weber, Curtis’s widow, after a delegation of the Hungarian Hollywood Council and the municipal council visited her in 2017.

The items will be housed in a building to be renovated as part of the municipal tourist project. 

Curtis (Bernát Schwartz by his birth name) was born in New York on June 3, 1925. His father Manó Schwartz and his mother Ilona Klein emigrated to New York from Mátészalka. 

Curtis came to Hungary several times and visited Mátészalka on one occasion. 

He helped to finance the renovation of Budapest’s Great Synagogue in the early 1990s. He was decorated with the Hungarian Republic Order of Merit Officer’s Class in 2009, when he presented his autobiography and paintings at the Budapest Book Festival. 

Curtis passed away in 2010.