The exhibition in the Pražák Palace aims to present an analytical selection from Rajlich's life-long oeuvre. His principal domain was graphic design and visual communication with outreaches to architecture, industrial design, as well as exhibition and stage design for which he drew inspiration from his non-commissioned work, painting, prints, art protis tapestries and spatial objects. In his versatility he continued the modernist tradition of inter-war Brno.
The authors elaborate on the processing of Rajlich's estate, substantial part of which was acquired by the Moravian Gallery through purchases and gifts for its collections as Jan Rajlich's Archive. Its content consists of artefacts proper and documents from Rajlich's life closely connected with the history of the Brno Biennial. Over time Jan Rajlich's Archive will be available in the online catalogue of the collections of the Moravian Gallery. The exhibition of Jan Rajlich in the Pražák Palace is accompanied by a critical analysis of Rajlich's output in the form of a collective monograph in Czech and English by a number of authors including Pavel Coufalík, Vít Jakubíček, Pavel Ryška, Markéta Svobodová and Marta Sylvestrová as the editor-in-chief of the publication.
THE RAJLICH 100 PROJECT
With the RAJLICH 100 exhibition project in 2020 the Moravian Gallery in Brno in collaboration with the Brno Biennial Association will mark the centenary of the birth of the Brno painter and graphic artist Jan Rajlich, the world-famous founder of the Brno Biennial. He was born in the small village of Dírná in South Bohemia between Tábor and Jindřichův Hradec as the fourth son of blacksmith Karel V. Rajlich. He completed grammar school in Jindřichův Hradec (1930-1939) and Baťa's Art School in Zlín (1939-1944). From 1950 he settled in Brno where he was initially active as a painter and graphic artist and soon afterwards as graphic designer and leading organiser of cultural life.
Jan Rajlich made himself famous in the world as the initiator and long-term chairman of the International Biennial of Graphic Design in Brno (1963-1992). He received more than forty international awards for his organisational, theoretical, artistic and writing efforts in the development of graphic design and visual communication, including several awards by the International Council of Communication Design ICOGRADA (1972, 1983, 1985 and 2002). In 1995 he received the Award of the City of Brno for his contribution to the cultural development of the city and results of his own creative work by which he touched on most areas of visual communication design. Rajlich's artistic, organisational and writing achievements in the field of graphic design rank him with the important figures of world's graphic design of the second half of the 20th century. He was an artist and designer, as well as writer, teacher and organiser of cultural life, who was an inspiration for founders of similar periodic exhibitions in Europe, America and Asia arriving in Brno to gain experience.
