Databáze uměleckých výstav v českých zemích 1820 – 1950

At the end of 1929, the cartoonist and painter Antonín Pelc established a long-term cooperation with the publishing house Družstevní práce (Cooperative Work). At the beginning of the following year, it published the first book edited by Pelc and soon his works began to appear in its periodicals. The first of these works, a caricature entitled Shaw in Czechoslovak Families, was printed in Zpravodaj Družstevní práce, a supplement to the cultural monthly Panorama. 

The publishing house promoted and sold the works of artists who cooperated with it. To this end, it used the premises of the print cabinet, which was established in November 1929 in the new Krásná jizba DP store on U Prašné brány Street in Prague. The cabinet’s exhibition program focused on caricatures and humorous drawings – its first exhibition featured “humorous and political drawings” by Otakar Mrkvička. In the 1930s, the cabinet became one of the most important venues for the presentation of this type of art.

The 1930 exhibition was Pelc’s first solo show and the third exhibition of the Krásná jizba DP. It featured 74 drawings (all but two for sale), installed in three dense rows. Most were created for the daily Prager Presse and the fortnightly Dobrý den. The exhibition allowed Pelc to show the two main aspects of his most recent cartooning work: the purely humorous (drawings for Prager Presse) and the sharply satirical and caricaturist (works for Dobrý den). He was able to present a range of drawings, from simple pen sketches to colour collages, including photographic material. 

The exhibition was a success for Pelc, validating his creative path. Newspaper critics pointed to the German sources of his caricatures, which Václav Vilém Štech had mentioned in his opening speech, namely the circle of artists around the satirical weekly Simplicissimus and the work of Georg Grosz [Nikodem 1930a, p. 4]. But they also emphasized his uniqueness and originality. According to Jaromír Pečírka, Pelc stood out among other Czech cartoonists because of his “artistically solid drawing and unique artistic hand, which, although rough at first, developed into the purity of style” [Pečírka 1930, p. 227]. In František Kovárna’s view, Pelc, of all the young cartoonists, came closest to the essence and meaning of this genre, because “he does not fall for the social sophistication of contemporary life, which turns caricature into a social joke and an amusing pun” [Kovárna 1930, p. 273]. Other reviewers offered more specific comparisons: Josef Čapek compared Pelc’s cartoons with those by Adolf Hoffmeister, whose work he saw as more static, less varied in composition, and less picturesque [Čapek 1930, p. 9]. Viktor Nikodem pointed to Pelc’s more abstract technique in comparison with the older artists such as Kratochvíl and Brunner, and also observed similarities with the works of Otakar Mrkvička. He believed Pelc’s lively temperament was an advantage [Nikodem 1930b, p. 4].

Pelc’s first exhibition concluded his early work. During the 1920s, he established himself as a respected, highly regarded cartoonist and draftsman with promising future prospects. His paintings, created largely out of an inner need for non-tendentious and purely painterly expression, remained hidden from public view in his studio for the time being.

Tomáš Winter

Works Cited

Čapek 1930: [Josef Čapek], Výstava karikatur Antonína Pelce, Lidové noviny XXXVIII, 1930, no 38, 22. 1., p. 9

Kovárna 1930: rna [František Kovárna], Z výstav. A. Pelc, Volné směry XXVII, 1929–1930, p. 273

Nikodem 1930a: N. [Viktor Nikodem], Výstava karikatur A. Pelce, Národní osvobození VII, 1930, no. 20, 21. 1., p. 4

Nikodem 1930b: N. [Viktor Nikodem], Z pražských výstav, Národní osvobození VII, 1930, no. 25, 26. 1., p. 4

Pečírka 1930: Jaromír Pečírka, Výstavy, Rozpravy Aventina V, 1929–1930, no. 19, 5. 2. 1930, p. 227

Further Reading

Anna Pravdová – Tomáš Winter (edd.), Seňorita Franco a Krvavý pes, Praha 2015, pp. 78–79

Lucie Vlčková (ed.), Krásná jizba – výstavní činnost v letech 1929–1936, Praha 2009, p. 48, 104–106 

Anonymous author, Výstava karikatur Antonína Pelce, Národní listy LXX, 1930, no. 44, 14. 2., p. 4 

Plk. [Josef Polák], Karikatury Antonína Pelce (Paběrky z pražských výstav), Demokratický střed VII, 1930, no. 17, 24. 1., p. 4