Databáze uměleckých výstav v českých zemích 1820 – 1950

Bedřich Feigl, a German-Czech Jewish painter and print maker, was among the founders of the art group named The Eight (Osma); he presented the most extensive set of artworks at their first exhibition. In 1910, Feigl moved to Berlin, where he stayed until Hitler came to power. Following a brief visit to Mandatory Palestine, he moved back to Prague in July 1933. The 1937 show was his last solo exhibition in Czechoslovakia before he fled to London in 1939. It was simultaneously the 50^th anniversary exhibition organized in his brother Hugo Feigl's gallery, newly relocated to Prague’s Masarykovo Embankment (the site of today's Hollar Gallery).

The exhibition presenting Feigl's works from the previous two years opened at 5 p.m. on May 12, 1937, with a speech by art historian Jaromír Pečírka, who later reviewed the show in the press. It featured a total of 34 oil paintings and 11 pen drawings and watercolours. Compared to Feigl's show held in his brother's gallery in November 1932, then located at its previous address on Jungmannova Street, the 1937 sales exhibition grew by more than a third and, most importantly, it now contained new paintings featuring themes from the painter's trip to Jerusalem and Palestine. In addition to urban scenes capturing Near-Eastern atmosphere, a number of paintings depicted Biblical scenes (e.g. The Finding of Moses), naturally blending with depictions of shepherds and Bedouins in the desert. Motif from Spain, Italy and Switzerland were less frequent at the exhibition but there were a number of Prague themes, dominated by the monumental canvas The Vltava River near Podbaba. The exhibition also featured portraits, among which the portrait of Paul Verlaine stood out – Feigl admired Verlaine and saw in him the epitome of the modern artist, tested by fate. The exhibition was also accompanied by various drawings, sketches and watercolours; reviewers particularly appreciated illustrations depicting Raskolnikov for Dostoevsky's Crime and Punishment and those for Balzac's Gobseck.

Surprisingly, the reviews, critical essays and short reports across all of the media, including the Czech, German and Jewish press, responded very positively to the exhibition. They mentioned Feigl's beginnings with the Osma group and the influence of Impressionism and Fauvism on his works; some authors even saw echoes of Baroque and Rococo in some of his paintings. He was praised as an “artist of the best European reputation” [t. 1937] and his artistic personality was discussed at length. According to the reviewers, Feigl's style was easy to recognize. Viktor Nikodém emphasized the “manly, robust temperament of his paintings” [Nikodém 1937], while Jaromír Pečírka wrote about the seriousness of Feigl's art stemming from his deeply ingrained pessimism.

Although Fiegl is now generally considered an Expressionist painter, reviewers in his time avoided the label, characterizing him at the most through statements such as “Feigl's landscapes bear a new expression” [o. 1937]. Most reviews discussed his specific use of colour as the most important element in his art. For example, Jaromír Pečírka mentioned the dark array of his basic colour tones, and light, which played the most important role in Feigl's work. The anonymous writer for Právo lidu explained: “...the painter freed his palette, arriving at his own way of colour reduction: the harmony of the cold black with the warm orange. This blending of two contrasting colours constitutes the main charm of his paintings. An array of semitones give his work a silver and gold patina” [Anonymous author 1937]. Interestingly, each of the reviewers saw Feigl's palette differently, using different words to describe it.

Most of the critics appreciated his landscapes and urban vedute depicting Jerusalem and Mandatory Palestine. Prague motifs were also popular with the reviewers – one author even compared Feigl's oil paintings such as The Vltava River near Podbaba and The Trip to similar works by Willi Nowak. Many reviewers praised Feigl's drawings and earlier prints. Importantly in this context, František Kovárna pointed out the graphic element in Feigl's paintings.

The Jewish press offered a specific perspective on Feigl's exhibitions. The Zionist-leaning Selbstwehr characterized Feigl as “the master of the pure Jewish soul” and considered his works “truly Jewish cultural goods.” The landscape paintings from Palestine are described very differently in Selbstwehr than in the rest of the periodicals with statements such as “the Biblical Arcadia opens to us its peace which we particularly need in our time of war and boundless hate” [h. p. 1937].

Feigl fled the Nazi rampage in Germany and found temporary asylum in his native Prague between 1933 and 1939. Following the occupation by the German army in 1939, he left Czechoslovakia for good. The exhibition in May and June 1937 thus became his last show in the still-free Prague. It received unusually positive reviews, with some of the critics explicitly mentioning Feigl's difficult move to Prague following “Hitler's coup” in 1933 [Anonymous author 1937]. In conclusion, we can say that the show offered a comprehensive and unprecedented high-quality selection of Feigl's paintings and drawings, most of which are part of Czech art collections today.

Eva Janáčová

Works Cited

Anonymous author 1937: Anonymous author, Dvě výstavy, Právo lidu XLVI, 1937, 26. 5., Archive of the National Gallery Prague, Moderní galerie, 1901–1942, Výstřižkové knihy – Praha 1937, book no. 12

h. p. 1937: h. p., Zur Ausstellung Friedrich Feigl, Selbstwehr XXXI, 1937, no. 20, 7. 5., Archive of the National Gallery Prague, Moderní galerie, 1901–1942, Výstřižkové knihy – Praha 1937, book no. 12

j. č. 1937: j. č., Výstavy v Praze, Lidové noviny XLV, 1937, no. 248, 19. 5., p. 7

Nikodém 1937: N. [Viktor Nikodém], Nové obrazy Bedřicha Feigla, Národní osvobození XIV, 1937, 8. 6., Archive of the National Gallery Prague, Moderní galerie, 1901–1942, Výstřižkové knihy – Praha 1937, book no. 12

o. 1937: o., II. Ausstellung Friedrich Feigl, Prager Mittag VI, 1937, 18. 5., Archive of the National Gallery Prague, Moderní galerie, 1901–1942, Výstřižkové knihy – Praha 1937, book no. 12

t. 1937: t., Ausstellung Friedrich Feigl, Der Prager Illustrierte Montag III, 1937, 17. 5., Archive of the National Gallery Prague, Moderní galerie, 1901–1942, Výstřižkové knihy – Praha 1937, book no. 12

Further Reading

Arno Pařík, Bedřich Feigl (1884–1965). Obrazy, kresby, grafika, Prague 2007

Nicholas Sawicki (ed.), Friedrich Feigl (1884–1965), Hluboká nad Vltavou – Cheb – Řevnice 2017

Archival Sources

Archive of the National Gallery Prague, Moderní galerie, 1901–1942, Výstřižkové knihy – Praha 1937, book no. 12

j. č., Výstavy v Praze, Lidové noviny XLV, 1937, no. 248, 19. 5., p. 7

Die Galerie Dr. Feigl in Prag, Deutsche Presse XIII, 1937, 13. 5., Archive of the National Gallery Prague, Moderní galerie, 1901–1942, Výstřižkové knihy – Praha 1937, book no. 12

Friedrich Feigl, Prager Presse XVII, 1937, 11. 5., Archive of the National Gallery Prague, Moderní galerie, 1901–1942, Výstřižkové knihy – Praha 1937, book no. 12

o., II. Ausstellung Friedrich Feigl, Prager Mittag VI, 1937, 18. 5., Archive of the National Gallery Prague, Moderní galerie, 1901–1942, Výstřižkové knihy – Praha 1937, book no. 12