Databáze uměleckých výstav v českých zemích 1820 – 1950

“The exhibition of British art in the Aleš Hall of the Umělecká Beseda (Artistic Forum) is the second international event in the artistic life of the liberated republic after the Spanish exhibition,” wrote a reviewer in Lidová demokracie [zmz 1946]. The small exhibition of nine artists came to Prague from Paris, after a stopover in Brno: from January 25 to February 17, 1946, it was presented under the title Contemporary British Art in the room of the Cultural and Educational Department of Brno’s National Committee, organized by the British Council and the Blok výtvarných umění země Moravskoslezské (Fine Arts Bloc of Moravia-Silesia), which published a separate catalogue. In Prague, the exhibition was organized by the Umělecká Beseda, which at that time aspired to the role of coordinator of important international exhibitions.

As the Umělecká Beseda’s 391st exhibition, British Modern Art took place in the small rooms of the Aleš Hall on Besední Street in Malá Strana. The accompanying catalogue lists 57 artworks. Most of them were small works, primarily drawings, ten paintings, and a few sculptures. A single surviving photograph of the exhibition shows that it was a traditional installation, with framed drawings (mostly watercolors and gouaches) hanging on the walls next to small-format oil paintings. In addition to Henry Moor, the icon of British modern sculpture, the exhibition featured painters who were among the so-called war artists. These artists enjoyed an official status that allowed them to work on contract for the British Army during mobilization. Most of the works were on loan from the War Artists' Advisory Committee (WAAC) and private collections, notably that of Kenneth Clark, the director of the British National Gallery and chairman of the WAAC during the Second World War. War artists were entrusted with creating visual representations of how the war was changing life in society: “Their task was to record and interpret in line and colour what was happening to the body and soul of our country and our nation. They were free to carry out this task with their own means and their own vision.” [Eardley-Wilmot 1946] Although we would expect most of the official war artists to be conservative figurative painters, there were Surrealists (Paul Nash) and abstraction-oriented painters (Graham Sutherland, John Tunnard) among them, probably thanks to the influence of Kenneth Clark. The Prague exhibition attests to this diversity of styles. Most of the works in the exhibition were created in response to the Second World War, with watercolours depicting landscapes and cities damaged by air raids, destroyed churches (John Piper), and people sheltering in the London Underground, such as Moore's watercolours Row of Sleepers and Underground Shelter. Alongside these works were the more neutral landscapes by the much-admired New Zealand-born artist Frances Hodgkins, who drew on French art, and figural scenes by the Scottish painter Robert Colquhoun, such as Grieving Women.

As Hazel Eardley-Wilmot, a British Council employee in Prague, writer, and later amateur archaeologist, noted in the exhibition’s introductory text, this was a selection of artists who had been most widely recognized in Great Britain during the previous decade. The catalogue also includes translations of poems by T. S. Eliot, Sidney Keyes, Edwin Muir, and Herbert Read. Jiří Kotalík wrote a short introduction, in which he placed the selected works into the context of English art history and emphasized that the exhibition was the first opportunity for the Czechoslovak public to become acquainted with British modern art. In the illustrated section of the catalogue, each of the artists received a page with a black-and-white reproduction and a short biography. This is followed by the list of exhibited artworks. The catalogue also contains a statement by the Umělecká Beseda’s Fine Arts Section expressing the intention to move its exhibitions from the Aleš Hall to the larger venue on the Slovanský Island: “We believe that the future exhibition projects of the Umělecká Beseda, aimed at expanding the cultural and artistic contacts of our cultural and political center, the capital city of Prague, with all the cultures of our allied nations, will take place in the more suitable space on Slovanský Island, which we are working to acquire. This space will be more in keeping with the importance of our national and international art projects and will be more accessible to visitors; it will guarantee a fuller realization of the new cultural values of the allied nations with which we must now be connected not only politically and economically but also through mutual cultural appreciation.” The Umělecká Beseda succeeded in this and, in 1947, it held two prominent exhibitions of postwar art in the new space – Art of Modern America and Paintings by National Artists of the USSR. In 1948, the exhibition Contemporary British Art symbolically closed this exhibition activity. 

The exhibition in the Aleš Hall was one of the cultural projects through which the Czechoslovak art community sought to expand its international dimension and strengthen its diplomatic relations with the victorious powers. Although it could not compete in size and scope with the parallel exhibition Art of Democratic Spain, it was an important part of the effort to break out of the isolation caused by the war. Other exhibitions in Prague reevaluated the previously dominant relationship with France, such as the 1946 Exhibition of Modern English Art from the Collections of the Tate Gallery in London, which took place at the National Gallery in Prague, and the aforementioned 1948 exhibition of Contemporary British Art. The political situation undoubtedly played a role in this development, as did the agility of the British Council. The exhibition was the first opportunity for Czechoslovak viewers to see the works of Henry Moore, who returned to Czechoslovakia several times and had a significant influence on Czech and Slovak sculpture. The exhibition probably also played an important role in the efforts of the Umělecká beseda to obtain the exhibition space on Slovanský Island.

Pavlína Morganová

Works cited                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                               

Eardley-Wilmot 1946: Hazel Eardley-Wilmot, Britské moderní umění, in: Britské moderní umění, Praha: Výtvarný odbor Umělecké besedy 1946, n. p.

zmz 1946: zmz, Britští výtvarníci v Praze, Lidová demokracie II, 1946, no. 53, 7. 3., p. 4

Further Reading

Jindřich Chalupecký, Výstavy cizího umění, Listy I, 1946, no. 2, pp. 318–320

Rudolf Matys, V umění volnost. Kapitoly z dějin Umělecké besedy, Praha: Academia 2003

Současné britské malířství (exh. cat.), Praha: Výtvarný odbor Umělecké besedy, 9. 4. – 9. 5. 1948

Soudobé britské umění (exh. cat.), Brno: Blok výtvarných umělců země Moravskoslezské, 25. 1. – 17. 2. 1946

Umělecká beseda 1863–2003 (exh. cat.), Praha: Galerie hlavního města Prahy 2003, p. 50

Výstava moderního anglického malířství z majetku Tate Gallery v Londýně (exh. cat.), Praha: Národní galerie v Praze 1946

Igor Zhoř, Hledání tvaru, Praha: Mladá fronta 1967, p. 49

Anonymous author, Ze současné výstavy britského umění v Praze, Tvorba XV, 1946, no. 11, p. 175