Databáze uměleckých výstav v českých zemích 1820 – 1950

The second exhibition of Prager Secession took place at the end of 1930, approximately one year after the first show of the members and guests of this association, which had emerged gradually during 1928 and 1929. The exhibition took place in the same Krasoumná jednota premises as the first one (tenement house at 12 Pštrossova Street) and was similar in its scope and cross-sectional character. However, its content and organization suggested a more sophisticated and ambitious approach than the first exhibition – there were more artists from outside of Prague and prominent foreign guests, and the catalogue was more elaborate. Accordingly, the show received a fair amount of attention from both the Czech and German media: “[…] The overall impression is more positive and serious,” wrote Jaromír Pečírka in his review of the second show. 

As early as September 27, 1930, the Prager Presse published information about the second Prager Secession exhibition, to be held in November, together with the call for artworks – all German artists from the Czechoslovak Republic were invited to participate. This was followed by an addendum stating that all works submitted, including those by members of the Prague Secession, would be assessed by the jury. The jury’s composition changed since the first exhibition; the original committee of eight was reduced to seven representatives of the association. It continued to include only active artists (see catalogue). The painter Charlotte Radnitz and the painter Karl Wagner dropped out and were replaced by the Ostrava painter Riko Mikeska.

The exhibition was accompanied by a fourteen-page catalogue published in Czech and German, with the two language versions distinguished by the different colours of the title pages. The Czech version featured brown shades, while the German version was light blue. The graphic design shows distinctly modernist features, an unusual occurrence in the contemporary German-Bohemian art world. Rather than following the standard visual template of the Krasoumná jednota catalogues, this catalogue was tailored to the style and ambitions of the Prager Secession. It was printed by the Unie Praha printworks. Like the catalogue of the first exhibition, it contained information about the association’s leadership, the list of founders and contributing members, and a brief, unsigned introductory text. It informed the readers about the selective nature of the exhibition, which – along with the presence of international guests – was meant to give the impression of exclusivity. The text also mentioned that this would be a touring exhibition, planned to travel from Prague to Nuremberg and other German cities. For the first time since the establishment of Czechoslovakia, it gave local German-Bohemian artists an opportunity to present their work abroad. Because the loosely related, German part of the exhibition was organized by art historian Otto Kletzl, who was Prager Secession’s secretary at the time, we may assume that he wrote the introductory text, although it may also have been Maxim Kopf, who gave the opening speech on Sunday, November 16, at 11 am. Kletzl was responsible for inviting guests, and he gave at least two guided tours of the exhibition. At the end of the text, the author emphasizes the multicultural, purely artistic character of the Prager Secession: “... it is certainly heartening to see that in the present time, full of political and economic tensions, purely cultural work can still be appreciated.” 

The exhibition included a total of 106 works by 37 artists, 5 of whom were women. Most of them were represented by three works, sometimes by two. In terms of technique, oil paintings predominated (64), followed by 15 watercolours, 1 gouache, 8 drawings, 8 prints and 10 sculptures. According to a photograph of the fourth exhibition of the Prager Secession (1932) in the same room, the works were installed rather densely, with the sculptures on pedestals mostly placed against the walls. Commenting on the installation in the tenement house on Pštrossova Street, Otakar Filip, a critic for the government newspaper Československá republika, praised the Krasoumná jednota for its ability to hold a series of coprehensive exhibitions “in relatively cramped and poorly lit spaces.” These exhibitions, according to Filip, “are a welcome benchmark for the state of art exhibitions in Bohemia.”

The catalogue lists three “invited guests” - Max Beckmann, Karl Hofer, and Oskar Kokoschka. We can assume that their presence was due to personal contacts with Friedrich Feigl or Willi Nowak. Max Beckmann was represented by a single painting, Portrait of Tessier, as was another Berlin painter, Karl Hofer, who exhibited his painting Am Ufer liegend (Lying on the Shore). Oskar Kokoschka had three paintings in the exhibition from the period shortly before the First World War – Portrait of the Poet Albert Ehrenstein (1914), now in the collections of the National Gallery Prague, which was listed in the Czech version of the catalogue as "The Picture of Ehrenstein”, The Portrait of the Marquis (probably a portrait of Joseph de Montesquiou-Fezensac from 1910), and Ritter, Tod und Engel (Knight, Death and Angel) from 1910-1911. Other prominent artists of the older generation were Wilhelm Thöny, who represented a link to the Vienna Hagenbund (he exhibited the painting Brücke (Traum)), and Anton Kolig, born Nový Jičín and working in Stuttgart at the time, whose status within the association was not specified in the catalogue, as in the case of Thöny. Kolig had three paintings in the exhibition and his oil Meine drei Ältesten was the most expensive item there, offered for the whooping sum of 96,000 crowns (for comparison, Kokoschka's paintings were offered for about half that amount, while the prices of most oils by members of the association ranged from two to four thousand crowns, or a maximum of eight thousand crowns). The core membership that formed during the Junge Kunst show (1928) and the Prager Secession’s first exhibition (1929) remained largely unchanged. In addition to members, it is worth mentioning the participation of Georg Kars, who exhibited three oil paintings, and Josef Hegenbarth, an artist working alternately in Dresden and Česká Kamenice. Neither of these artists was a member of the Prager Secession at the time, but they were not listed as guests in the catalogue.

During the second Prague exhibition, the Prager Secession tried to present itself as a prestigious modernist platform for the German-speaking scene in the Czech lands. “The quality of the exhibition is in part very good, in part mediocre; the better part can certainly compete with our modern art,” wrote Lidové noviny (probably Josef Čapek). The critic Viktor Nikodém characterized Prager Secession as “an association of modern, unconventional German artists.” In terms of artistic position, moderate Expressionism prevailed, supplemented by works with elements of New Objectivity, influenced mainly by Berlin (Ilona Singer, Grete Passer), but also by the Parisian artistic milieu (Maxim Kopf, Charlotte Radnitz). These were works that appealed to a potential clientele and were in keeping with the tastes of the association’s supporters. V. V. Štech commented on the content of the exhibition as follows: “Here, too, the characteristic German Expressionism reigns supreme as an artistic expression of the restless soul and inner turmoil…”. 

Originally composed mainly of Prague artists, the Prague Secession sought to establish itself in the international art world by inviting foreign (mostly German) guests, under the protection of its own jury. At the same time, it wanted to absorb selected artists from the regions whose work and views corresponded to the association’s stance. This concentrative tendency was manifested in the second exhibition of the Prager Secession by the relatively large number of guests from the Karlovy Vary region (in addition to members Wilhelm Klier, Josef Dobrowski and Gabriele Waldert, the exhibition included Wilhelm Srb-Schlossbauer and Oswald Voh as guests), but also by the participation of several more progressive artists from Liberec or Jablonec nad Nisou (Arthur Ressel, Karl May, Richard Fleissner) and Opava (Viktor Planckh). This effect of the metropolis attracting interesting artists from the regions culminated in the second exhibition. Adolf Felix wrote in Národní politka: “It is an international stronghold of German artists with its centre in Prague (barely 40 per cent of them are Prague natives).” Efforts to reach out beyond Prague and into the regions, where some of the association’s patrons and supporters were based, continued in the following years, but still involved only a few individual artists. Prager Secession did not see significant increase in membership from 1930 onwards. Despite its apparent regional focus, it remained a distinctly Prague-based association in the 1930s, with the occasional appearance of individuals or guests from outside Prague. The participation of international guests was sometimes just cosmetic or limited to artists living in Czechoslovak emigration, among whom Oskar Kokoschka played a central role.

Ivo Habán

Further Reading

Ivo Habán, Prager Secession. Německý sen v multikulturní Praze, in: Anna Habánová (ed.), Mladí lvi v kleci. Umělecké skupiny němec ky hovořících výtvarníků z Čech, Moravy a Slezska v meziválečném období, Liberec – Řevnice 2013, pp. 118–151

Anna Habánová, Za hranice republiky – Vídeň, Mnichov, Norimberk, Štrasburk. Přehlídky německočeského výtvarného umění v zahraničí, in: Anna Habánová (ed.), Mladí lvi v kleci. Umělecké skupiny němec ky hovořících výtvarníků z Čech, Moravy a Slezska v meziválečném období, Liberec – Řevnice 2013, pp. 176–189

Anna Janištinová, Praha a Čechy, in: Hana Rousová (ed.) Mezery v historii, Polemický duch Střední Evropy – Němci, Židé, Češi (kat. výst.), Praha 1994, pp. 44–53

Archival Sources

Archive of the National Gallery in Prague, fonds Moderní galerie, nákupy děl [Modern Gallery, purchases of artworks]; fonds Krasoumná jednota, výstřižková služba, fond Willi Nowak, korespondence [Fine Arts Association, clipping service, fonds Willi Nowak, correspondence]

Prague City Archives, SK IX/0672, box no. 350

Anonymous author, Zweite Ausstellung der Prager Sezession, Prager Presse 10, 1930, no. 266, 27. 9., p. 8

Anonymous author, Dei „Prager Sezession“, Deutsche Zeitung Bohemia 103, 1930, no. 267, 14. 11., p. 7

Anonymous author, Prager Secession, Národní osvobození, 1930, 16. 11., Archiv Národní galerie v Praze, fond Krasoumná jednota, sign. č. AA1502/3, novinové výstřižky z let 1930–1931 [Archive of the National Gallery Prague, fonds Krasoumná jednota, sign. no. AA1502/3, newspaper clippings from 1930–1931]

Anonymous author, Sezessions-Eröffnung, Abendzeitung, 1930, 17. 11., Archiv Národní galerie v Praze, fond Krasoumná jednota, sign. č. AA1502/3, novinové výstřižky z let 1930–1931 [Archive of the National Gallery Prague, fonds Krasoumná jednota, sign. no. AA1502/3, newspaper clippings from 1930–1931]

Anonymous author, Eröffnung der „Sezession“-Ausstellung, Deutsche Zeitung Bohemia 103, 1930, no. 270, 18. 11., p. 8

Anonymous author, Die Ausstellung der Prager Secession, Abendblatt, 1930, 19. 11., Archiv Národní galerie v Praze, fond Krasoumná jednota, sign. č. AA1502/3, novinové výstřižky z let 1930–1931 [Archive of the National Gallery Prague, fonds Krasoumná jednota, sign. no. AA1502/3, newspaper clippings from 1930–1931]

Kr. [Leopold Kreitner?], Ztracené směry, Polední list, 1930, 19. 11., Archiv Národní galerie v Praze, fond Krasoumná jednota, sign. č. AA1502/3, novinové výstřižky z let 1930–1931 [Archive of the National Gallery Prague, fonds Krasoumná jednota, sign. no. AA1502/3, newspaper clippings from 1930–1931]

Anonymous author, Die Ausstellung der „Prager Sezession“, Deutsche Zeitung Bohemia 103, 1930, no. 272, 20. 11., p. 6

Anonymous author, President republiky, České slovo, 1930, 22. 11., Archiv Národní galerie v Praze, fond Krasoumná jednota, sign. č. AA1502/3, novinové výstřižky z let 1930–1931 [Archive of the National Gallery Prague, fonds Krasoumná jednota, sign. no. AA1502/3, newspaper clippings from 1930–1931]

Anonymous author, In der Ausstellung der Prager Sezession, Deutsche Zeitung Bohemia 103, 1930, no. 274, 22. 11., p. 7

Richard Schrötter, Bildnis seiner Gattin. Aus der Ausstellung der „Prager Sezession“ im Kunstverein für Böhmen, Deutsche Zeitung Bohemia, 1930, 23. 11., Archiv Národní galerie v Praze, fond Krasoumná jednota, sign. č. AA1502/3, novinové výstřižky z let 1930–1931 [Archive of the National Gallery Prague, fonds Krasoumná jednota, sign. no. AA1502/3, newspaper clippings from 1930–1931]

Anonymous author, Die Ausstellung der „Prager Sezession“, Deutsche Zeitung Bohemia 103, 1930, no. 275, 23. 11., p. 9

Anonymous author, Die Ausstellung der „Prager Sezession“, Deutsche Zeitung Bohemia 103, 1930, no. 277, 26. 11., p. 6

Anonymous author, Die Ausstellung der „Prager Sezession“, Deutsche Zeitung Bohemia 103, 1930, no. 278, 27. 11., p. 7

Anonymous author, Aus der II. Ausstellung der Prager „Sezession“, Zeit im Bild, 1930, 27. 11., Archiv Národní galerie v Praze,fond Krasoumná jednota, sign. č. AA1502/3, novinové výstřižky z let 1930–1931 [Archive of the National Gallery Prague, fonds Krasoumná jednota, sign. no. AA1502/3, newspaper clippings from 1930–1931]

Anonymous author, Führung durch die Prager Sezession, Deutsche Zeitung Bohemia 103, 1930, no. 281, 30. 11., p. 9

Anonymous author, Führung durch die Prager Sezession, Deutsche Zeitung Bohemia 103, 1930, no. 282, 2. 12., p. 8

Anonymous author, In der Ausstellung der Prager Sezession, Deutsche Zeitung Bohemia 103, 1930, no. 283, 3. 12., p. 6

Anonymous author, Die Ausstellung der „Prager Sezession“, Deutsche Zeitung Bohemia 103, 1930, no. 286, 6. 12., p. 7

Anonymous author, Die Ausstellung der „Prager Sezession“, Deutsche Zeitung Bohemia 103, 1930, no. 288, 9. 12., p. 7