Fotografie | Databáze uměleckých výstav v českých zemích 1820

Commentary

The 1938 exhibition Photography in Prague's Mánes building, which presented a selection from the oeuvres of six prominent Czech photographers, was overshadowed by the International Photography Exhibition, organized by the same association two years earlier. On the occasion of the latter show, a photography section was established in Mánes, joined by Jaromír Funke, František Pekař, Josef Sudek, Jiří Lehovec, František Povolný, Lubomír Linhart and Jiří Jeníček [Vojta 1938, p. 18]. The 1938 exhibition was intended as a collective appearance of the Mánes photo section. Jindřich Štyrský and František Vobecký were represented instead of František Povolný and Jiří Jeníček, who refused to participate in the exhibition due to his work commitments. According to surviving correspondence, invited photographers who finally did not attend the show most likely also included Karel Plicka and Karel Hájek. In any case, the final selection contained only six names. It was Lubomír Linhart, who authored introductory texts in the catalogues of both photography exhibitions in Mánes. His emphasis on “the artists' methodical work” as opposed to accidentally successful images is interesting not only in relation to his requirement for a systematic approach, but also for his use of the word artist. The question of whether photography could be considered art was still being discussed in the magazine Světozor as late as in 1936. By using the word artist in the context of photography, Linhart unambiguously declares that photography is art without having to reopen the debate. He writes: “By removing randomness from photographic work and by striving to take a photograph that requires a methodical and systematic creative execution of premeditated and elaborate creative intents, a photograph that originates from method and intent rather than from coincidence, a photograph that does not show ‘what the camera can do’ but rather what the photographer as a creative subject wants to show, a photograph that wants to not only represent and depict the world but express, interpret and change it using its specific means of expression – by way of all this, the members of the Mánes photographic section aim to discover new possibilities and expressions of photography.” [Linhart 1938, n.p.] Photography was now an art, not in the sense of beautified reality, deliberately blurred image and an expression of mood, but in its conscious and systematic realization of creative intentions through photographic means.

Each of the photographers at the exhibition presented a different number of works. Although Linhart emphasized the “products of the latest period” in the catalogue [Linhart 1938, n.p.], some of the works were up to twenty years old. Jaromír Funke exhibited 74 works from the period between 1923 and 1938 – still lifes, photograms and “abstract photo” from the 1920s, portraits (Beneš, Nejedlý, Mukařovský and others), landscapes and newer photographs from the series Time Lasts, The Uncommonness of the Everyday and Zakarpattia. Jiří Lehovec's set was the smallest, containing 29 photographs taken between 1928 and 1935. The absence of images from the last few years was due to Lehovec's military service at the time and his inclination toward film making [Hermann 1938, p. 291]. František Pekař presented 90 photographs from 1932–1937 including his photographs of Prague, reportage images from the Municipal Women's Vocational School and a scout camp, as well as South-Bohemian landscapes and a large set of photographs of children (also in 1938, these images appeared in the publication Photographing Children, the first volume of the series Photography Discovers the World, edited by Jaromír Funke) [Pekař 1938]. Josef Sudek was represented by a similar number of photographs. His selection of 86 images from 1918–1937 contained an array of themes, from atmospheric landscapes and 1920s shots of the St. Vitus Cathedral, photographs of Prague and still lifes (including several examples of commercial photography) to photographs of sculptures. Jindřich Štyrský's set was smaller – 11 photographs from the series Parisian Afternoon and 36 images from the series Frog Man. František Vobecký's set was also smaller – just 36 photographs.

The journal Volné směry published four photographs from the exhibition (Pekař's South-Bohemian Landscape, Funke's image from the series Zakarpattia, one photograph from Štyrský's series Frog Man and Sudek's Detail of a Tree), along with an introductory speech held at the opening by Jaromír Funke. Like Linhart, Funke emphasized meticulous and systematic work, underlining the photographer's personality: “The man at the camera is independent, and his camera sees the way the photographer wants.” [Funke 1938]. A collage showing the Mánes display window and the detail of the advertising banner for the exhibition appeared on the cover of the March issue of the magazine Fotografie. Its editor, Karel Hermann, wrote that the exhibition “fulfilled its discovery mission.” Unlike other reviewers, Hermann praised the exhibition, regarding it as a “great cultural achievement” [Hermann 1938, p. 291]: “Mánes showed very firmly and emphatically that individuality must be put before technique and that the photographer must be freed from a plethora of traditional prejudices.” He names several of “Mánes's discoveries” leading to good photography – new methods, deep interest, personal responsibility and, indirectly, criticism, which, in this particular case, according to Hermann, had failed. We may only assume that the negative reviews at the time contributed to the fact that this “exhibition of the six” in Mánes has received only marginal attention from photography historians. Yet this was an exceptional show representing distinctive, solitary Czech interwar photographers, who were featured in a surprisingly coordinated manner, offering a cross-section of their work over the previous two decades.