This exhibition is dedicated to transformations in the academic principles of Czech painting in the first half of the 20th century. It focuses upon a parallel history of art, taking place in the shadow of the “big” story of Czech modernism and the avant-garde.
It will present artists who were, for decades, found at the
margins of Czech art history or who were, either partially or
completely, excluded from it. Nudes, allegorical, mythological and
bucolic scenes by František Jakub, Oskar Brázda, Josef Loukota,
Jakub Obrovský, František Xaver Naske and others bear witness to
the generalisation and simplification of artistic concepts
formulated by the previous generations of academics. Taking into
account the importance of the tradition of academic schooling for
the academism of the first half of the 20th century, the show will
include works by the older generations of artists prominent in the
last quarter of the 19th century. Vojtěch Hynais, František
Ženíšek, Vlaho Bukovac, Franz Thiele, Max Švabinský and others
mediated basic artistic experience to the artists to whom the
exhibition is dedicated, shaping their traditional and conservative
artistic orientation, often for the rest of their lives. The
affinity between academic art of the first half of the 20th century
and commercial photography, popular illustrations, sentimental
films and pictorial forms of social and political representation is
demonstrated at the exhibition by these period records.
City Gallery Prague
