Databáze uměleckých výstav v českých zemích 1820 – 1950

The Czechoslovak People and Their Homeland in Life, Work, and Struggle was the first large-scale exhibition of Czech and Slovak art after 1948 and the first to take place in the newly reconstructed Riding School at Prague Castle. Rather than an overview or a retrospective, it was an ideological manifesto. The selection included works from the past thirty years (i.e., from the founding of Czechoslovakia onward) that “suited the new ideology and cultural politics” [Morganová 1999, p. 39]. The show was a politically significant event organized by the Presidential Office as part of the 9th Congress of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia. It was held under the auspices of Klement Gottwald, the first Czechoslovak working-class president. Presumably, Gottwald also prompted the reconstruction of the Riding School. His presence at Prague Castle was highly symbolic: “The fact that the ancient Prague Castle is now the seat of the leader of our working class symbolizes most powerfully that in our Republic, the working people became the sole sovereign lord and master after the glorious February 1948." [Pet'as 1949] 

The position of the exhibition’s secretary (chief curator in today’s terminology) was entrusted to František Peťas (1912-1976), an art historian and heritage conservationist, who also sat on the board of the journal Výtvarné umění (Fine Arts) [Slavíček 2016, p. 1121]. The installation committee responsible for the design and execution of the installation consisted of Karel Holan, Josef Brož, Jan Lauda, František Peťas, and the director of the National Gallery Vladimír Novotný. The honorary presidium had six members, including two ministers: Zdeněk Nejedlý (Minister of Education, Sciences and Arts) and Václav Kopecký (Minister of Information and Learning). The exhibition committee included 26 artists (e. g. Karel Holan, Jan Lauda, Arnošt Paderlík, Václav Rabas), art historians (Antonín Matějček, V. V. Štech, Vladimír Novotný), and politicians (František Nečásek). The artworks were selected by a jury headed by the art historian Antonín Matějček. It is impossible to precisely determine the jury’s composition but based on Matějček’s statement in the press, most of its members were artists, and there were also three workers [Morák 1949]. 

What did the exhibition present, and what was its genesis? The original, much less extensive version of the show opened in Gottwaldov on April 3, 1949. It included about 400 works of art and welcomed approximately 25,000 visitors [Peťas 1949]. The reprise in the Prague Castle Riding School, held from May 22, 1949, was significantly larger, showcasing 591 works by 155 artists. There were 454 paintings (oils and a diversity of drawings and prints) and 137 sculptures (mostly of bronze and plaster, some of baked clay and wood). The Prague show presented a comprehensive overview of Czech and Slovak art from the founding of independent Czechoslovakia in 1918 to 1948. It aimed to establish a “new canon” [Morganová 1999, p. 39], “oriented toward the needs of today and tomorrow” [Nečásek 1949]. It is worth mentioning that although this was undoubtedly a tendentious selection, it did not present exclusively realistic works, unlike the subsequent shows. However, realism dominated. The chairman of the jury, Antonín Matějček, described The Czechoslovak People and their Homeland in Life, Work and Struggle as “an exhibition of realism,” but added that the selection respected the works’ artistic value [Morák 1949].

Regarding the iconology of the exhibited works, there were several distinct themes: agriculture (Václav Trefil, In the Field, Ludvík Kuba, At the Thresher), landscapes (Václav Špála, By the Berounka River, Václav Rabas, West Bohemian Landscape), cityscapes (Ferdiš Duša, Ostrava, Vlastimil Rada, Ostrava, Karel Holan, The ruins of the Old Town Hall), labour (Alois Sopr, The Smith, Karel Hladík, Riveters), genre motifs (Václav Fiala, Circus People, Gustav Mallý, Market), portraits (Karel Pokorný, Alois Jirásek, Fraňo Štefunko, Dr. Jozef Škultéty) and war themes (Antonín Kalvoda, Red Army Soldier, Vincenc Makovský, Partisan, Ján Želibský, Retreat to the Mountains). The show naturally included purely ideological/political themes (Antonín Pelc, Goebbels, Josef Brož, February, Onward Ho, Jan Čumpelík, Poster Design), but there were no still lifes and depictions of women. According to the surviving photographs in the press [Peťas 1949], the central space of the Prague Castle Riding Hall was divided into a regular grid by panels on which larger paintings were placed, with sculptures interspersed between them. Prints and drawings hung in the side corridors in two rows, one above the other.

The Ministry of Information and Learning published a catalogue of the same title as the exhibition. It contained a two-page introduction signed “Exhibition Committee” and 24 black-and-white reproductions of selected artworks. Because of its strong symbolism, Josef Brož’s Onward Ho, a painting depicting the events of February 1948, took up a prominent place at the beginning of the catalogue. In the introduction, the exhibition committee postulated their central thesis (“bringing art closer to the general public and the working people”), explaining the selection of works (those that speak most closely to our new present and those in which we feel a genuine and warm relationship to the working people, the nation and its country, and which preserve the national traditions of our classical realist art from the onslaught of foreign formalist influences” [Československý lid 1949, n. p.]. A “List of Exhibited Works” was published separately (without the author’s name).

The opening ceremony took place on May 22, 1949, with three speakers giving the opening address: Minister Zdeněk Nejedlý; Karel Pokorný, a sculptor and rector of the Academy of Fine Arts; and the painter František Želibský, who spoke on behalf of Slovak artists. In his speech, Nejedlý called for the connection between art and people, an appeal that also resounded in the catalogue’s introductory essay: “We felt very well, he went on to say, that for some time now, art had been guided by tendencies that went against the people’s interests and had departed far from the line it had followed before and which we need today” [Anonymous author 1949a]. Art should be clear and accessible, as Klement Gottwald later said: “There was certainly a merit to the exhibitions in the Riding School, he said, as they have dealt a heavy blow to all those cubisms, futurisms, and similar absurdities and proved that art, if it wants to, can speak to ordinary people.” [Nečásek 1953]

The exhibition was well attended and received much attention in the press. Reviews mostly commented on the intentions behind the show and its extraordinary popularity. The authors highlighted the visits of worker collectives and their impressions of the show. The anonymous author of an article entitled “Jawa Workers at the Exhibition” pointed out the show’s value for the “common folk audience”: “Visitors expressed their satisfaction with the exhibition’s clarity. At previous exhibitions, the common viewers reportedly felt that the world was much more beautiful than the artists portrayed it... The exhibition and the pleasant impression it made and the promise that, from now on, all exhibitions will be like this, will certainly dispel the mistrust resulting from previous bad experiences.” [Anonymous author 1949b] At the same time as the exhibition described here, there was another show in the nearby Belvedere, the Classics of Czech Painting. The Czechoslovak People exhibition served as its counterpart and “a response to the work of our classics” [St. R. 1949].

The Czechoslovak People and Their Homeland in Life, Work, and Struggle presents one of the most significant exhibitions in postwar Czechoslovakia. It marked the beginning of the socialist art canon and became a “model” for future politically engaged shows. At the same time, we can perceive it as an expression of the change in perspective on artistic output between 1918 and 1948 and an attempt to establish a new art historical canon aligned with the new ideology. 

Markéta Kudláčová

Works Cited

Anonymous author 1949a: Anonymous author, V duchu tradic klasiků. Výstava čs. umění na pražském hradě zahájena, Lidové noviny pražské LVII, 1949, no. 121, 24. 5.,p. 1

Anonymous author 1949b: Dělníci Jawy na výstavě. Lidové noviny venkovské, 28. 6. 1949, Archive of the National Gallery in Prague, fonds Dokumentace výstav NG, 1945–1958, 1949, Československý lid a jeho kraj v životě, práci a zápasu, Výstřižky z tisku [The Czechoslovak People and Their Homeland in Life, Work, and Struggle, press clippings]

Československý lid 1949: Československý lid a jeho kraj v životě, práci a zápasu (exh. cat.), Praha 1949

St. R. 1949: St. R., Dvě velké výstavy na Pražském hradě. Lidová demokracie, pražské vydání V, 1949, no. 120, 22. 5., p. 5 

Morák 1949: Jaroslav Morák, Novinové Mevro, MY 49, 2. 6. 1949, Archive of the National Gallery in Prague, fonds Dokumentace výstav NG, 1945–1958, 1949, Československý lid a jeho kraj v životě, práci a zápasu, Výstřižky z tisku [The Czechoslovak People and Their Homeland in Life, Work, and Struggle, press clippings]

Morganová 1999: Pavlína Morganová, Podoby oficiální kultury, České umění 1939–1989. Programy a impulzy (symposium proceedings), Praha 1999, pp. 36–46 

Nečásek 1949: František Nečásek, Dvě výstavy československého umění na pražském hradě, Rudé právo XXIX, 1949, no. 120, 22. 5., p. 4

Nečásek 1953: František Nečásek, Památce Klementa Gottwalda, Výtvarné umění III, 1953, no. 2, pp. 123–133

Peťas 1949: František Peťas, Výstavy na pražském hradě, Architektura ČSR VIII, 1949, nos 5–6, pp. 146–148

Slavíček 2016: Lubomír Slavíček (ed.), Slovník historiků umění, výtvarných kritiků, teoretiků a publicistů v českých zemích a jejích spolupracovníků z příbuzných oborů (asi 1800–2008), Praha 2016

Further Reading

Libor Kára, Z nové cesty výtvarnictví, Tvorba XVIII, 1949, no. 26, 29. 6., pp. 613–614 

Tereza Petišková, Československý socialistický realismus, Praha 2002

Vedoucí úloha KSČ v boji za socialistické výtvarné umění, Výtvarné umění XI, 1961–1962, no. 7, pp. 289–306, esp. pp. 298–299  

Archival Sources

Archive of the National Gallery in Prague, fonds Dokumentace výstav NG [Documentation of NG Exhibitions], 1945–1958

Anonymous author, Umělecká galerie na Hradě, Svobodné slovo V (pražské vydání), 1949, no. 110, 11. 5., p. 3

Anonymous author, Práce a zápas našeho lidu. Výstava v bývalé jízdárně pražského hradu, Lidová demokracie V (pražské vydání), 1949, no. 110, 11. 5., p. 1

Anonymous author, Kultura národu národ kultuře, Otevření největší výstavní síně v Praze. Vzácné umělecké výstavy u příležitosti IX. sjezdu KSČ, Stráž lidu V, 1949, no. 111, 12. 5., p. 3

Anonymous author, Kultura. Z jízdárny pražského Hradu největší výstavní sál Evropy, Stráž Severu V, 1949, no. 114, 15. 5., p. 8

Anonymous author, Výstava v nové pražské galerii k IX. sjezdu KSČ, Stráž lidu V, 1949, no. 115, 17. 5., p. 3

Anonymous author, Umělecké výstavy na Hradě pod záštitou presidenta republiky, Rudé právo XXIX, 1949, no. 110,  21. 5., p. 3

Anonymous author, Výstavní síň v Jízdárně, Svobodné slovo V, no. 119, 21. 5., p. 5

Anonymous author, Kulturní dar presidenta republiky čs. lidu. Na pražském hradě otevřeny dvě významné výstavy, Lidová demokracie V (pražské vydání), 1949, no. 121, 24. 5., p. 2

Anonymous author, Na výstavě v Jízdárně, Svobodné slovo V (pražské vydání), 1949, no. 123, 26. 5., p. 5

Anonymous author, Rudé právo XXIX, 1949, no. 150, 26. 6., p. 5

at (Praha), Pražský hrad – jiný než včera, Nová svoboda V, 1949, no. 114, 15. 5., p. 7

Olga Krejčová, Naše cesta k umění, Vlasta III, 1949,  no. 22, 2. 6., p. 3

ppr. J. Koura, Vojáci na výstavě v Belvederu, Obrana lidu III, 1949, no. 148,  25. 6., p. 5.