National Gallery of Moravia

The Moravian Gallery in Brno came into being in 1961 and celebrates 50 years of its existence under the MG trademark. However, through its collections its pedigree goes back to the Museum of Applied Arts, established in 1873, and even to the original Franz Josef Museum in Brno, founded as early as 1817 as a universal museum with its sphere of activity covering the whole territory of Moravia and Austrian Silesia. As such it represents the fi rst continually developing public art collection in Moravia (194 years). A really good reason to celebrate!

The abundance of its art collections and the wide range of its activities make the Moravian Gallery in Brno the most important institution of the art museum type within the boundaries of historical Moravia. Had not this proud and for centuries politically independent territory lost its self-governing status in the recent past, the Moravian Gallery would have naturally enjoyed the position of a "land" or even "national" institution. Today, the regional character of the gallery as its very name spells out can be perceived either as an unpleasant load with a strange odour of provincialism - Moravia as a land no longer exists either legally or administratively - or, quite on the contrary, positively as a challenge to examine the specific history of the cultural life and the nature of the region's heritage with a rich past and great cultural potential.

The exhibition highlights the continuity of the art collections of the Moravian Gallery in Brno with the collections of the institutions that it succeeded at the moment of its inception in 1961 (Franz Josef Museum, Moravian Museum, Moravian Industrial Museum). It outlines the acquisition strategies of those institutions, especially with regards to the then contemporary art in Moravia, and how the expansion of the collections was infl uenced by changes in period taste and the developments in the political and national situation. The selection of exhibits illustrates the different phases of the search for a Moravian identity over the period from the 18th century to roughly the mid-20th century. The primary focus of the exhibition concerns the themes that a "Moravian national gallery" should cover, such as the art topography of Moravia or the land's history, mythology and folklore. Alongside artists generally recognised as the leading protagonists of artistic creation in Moravia (Joža Uprka, Bohumír Jaroněk, Antonín Procházka) it also includes the work of Moravian Germans (Hugo Baar, Karl Wollek) and some less progressive, but in their time important figures (František Richter, Šimon Tadeáš Millián, Josef Zelený).

Entry 80/40 CZK, Family 170 CZK, Group 30 CZK/person