Databáze uměleckých výstav v českých zemích 1820 – 1950

The exhibition of Maxim Kopf and Mary Duras was the first in Prague to present the two young progressive representatives of the local German-speaking art scene, both graduates of the Prague Academy of Fine Arts, who decided to return to Prague after five successful years abroad. This exhibition established them in the Czechoslovak art world, which was later confirmed by the Modern Gallery’s purchase of works from the exhibition. The catalogue went beyond the usual standards of the time, testifying to the artists’ high ambitions. It featured introductory texts on each artist written by the art historian Antonín Friedl, with whom Kopf carefully consulted on the catalogue’s appearance. As was typical of Krasoumná jednota, the catalogue was published in both Czech and German, but otherwise it surpassed the association’s usual and rather modest catalogue production. In its overall tone it presented the international, purely artistic, and apolitical attitude of both exhibiting artists, far removed from the sulkiness and nationalist pathos that characterized part of the contemporary regional Bohemian-German art scene.

Unlike many other contemporary exhibitions of Czech Germans, the Kopf-Duras show was widely covered by the Czech-language media, although the most extensive reviews appeared in the German-language dailies Prager Tagblatt and Deutsche Zeitung Bohemia. From today’s perspective, it is interesting to observe the gendered perception of the artistic pair. Not only the catalogue but also all the press reviews began with the story and the work of Maxim Kopf and always devoted more space to him. Friedl’s essays in the catalogue were the only exception. These essays became the main source for the reviewers who in unison reported on the circumstances of the artists’ five-year stay abroad, the nature of their exhibited works, and how foreign influences affected them. However, none of the reviewers considered the exhibition itself, its installation, the number of visitors, or its overall message. No personal testimony has survived in either Duras’s or Kopf’s estate, so we can only rely on the catalogue and contemporary periodicals for reconstruction.

Mary Duras exhibited 14 sculptures, mostly from her Paris period (1924-1927), in plaster, bronze, baked clay, and marble, five of which had variations in different techniques listed in the catalogue. Approximately half of the works were small studies. On July 17, 1927, the Modern Gallery purchased three sculptures presented at the exhibition: the bronze Mask and the plaster sculptures Portrait of Mme B. and Portrait of Mme C., which were listed in the exhibition catalogue as not for sale. Duras’s work was generally less irritating to the public than most of the avant-garde production because of its classical expression, and both Czech and German critics received it positively. The critic František V. Mokrý wrote: “Mary Duras, a student of Štursa, will become a good sculptor. Her works to date are full of plastic excitement, well-constructed and soulful – they are real works of art without any extraneous literary additions. You can feel the good Štursa school in them and a glimpse of the great traditional French sculpture...” [Mokrý 1927].

The catalogue shows that Kopf exhibited a total of 55 works, all of which were for sale. Techniques were not listed, but from the prices and titles of the works, those familiar with Kopf’s work can deduce that paintings predominated – there must have been more than thirty. Kopf presented works created during his stay in the USA, in Paris and during a trip to the Pacific islands of Tahiti and the Marquesas. At first glance, these works were very different from Kopf’s spiritual work of the early 1920s, which he had exhibited in Prague at Die Pilger group exhibitions. The reviewers generally appreciated his American-inspired work more highly than his work from the Pacific: “New York suits him better, with its buildings, scaffolding, bridges, constructions and advertisements, with which he boldly and restlessly fills the painting, whose geometry is enlivened by the hectic movement of life in the streets and buildings, by crowds, haste and technology,” commented an unsigned commentator in Lidové noviny, probably Josef Čapek [Anonym 1927]. The most expensive work was the painting Evening (Tahiti), now unidentified, with a price of 10,000 crowns, followed by the American paintings Times Square (8,000 crowns) and Columbus Circle N.Y. (6,000 crowns). Times Square was purchased by the Modern Gallery on April 17, 1927 for the asking price of 8,000 crowns. On the same day, the gallery bought two more of Kopf’s charcoal drawings that were shown in the exhibition, Nude and People.

The joint exhibition of Maxim Kopf and Mary Duras was not the only show of this artistic couple that the Krasoumná jednota held in its exhibition halls in the 1920s. It was, however, exceptional in its acclaim, sales success, and collaboration with Antonín Friedl. The exhibition illustrates the Krasoumná jednota’s multi-ethnic dramaturgy and its efforts to showcase young art, including that produced abroad. The joint exhibition of Charlotte Radnitz and Richard Schrötter, held two years earlier, was a similar case, albeit less glamorous. It also presented Bohemian Germans working abroad (in Venice and Paris) and the artists also managed to sell their works to the Modern Gallery’s German Section. However, unlike Radnitz and Schrötter, Kopf and Duras became the driving forces of Prague's German-speaking art scene in the following years and repeated their joint exhibition in 1931, this time as established artists of the Prager Secession. The exhibition demonstrates the self-confidence and organizational skills of both artists, who, unlike dozens of others, were able to offer enough high-quality works and to communicate remotely with the representatives of the Krasoumná jednota to arrange their show in the most important exhibition venue in Czechoslovakia.

Ivo Habán

Works Cited

Anonym 1927: Anonym, Maxim Kopf v Krasoumné Jednotě, Lidové noviny 35, 1927, no. 139, 18. 3., p. 7

Mokrý 1927: Frant. V. Mokrý [František Viktor Mokrý], Malíř Maxim Kopf a sochařka Mary Durasová, Venkov, 1927, 18. 3., Archive of the National Gallery in Prague, fonds Krasoumná jednota, sign. no. AA1502/1, newspaper clippings from 1916–1928

Further Reading

 Ivo Habán, Mary Duras, Liberec – Řevnice 2014

Ivo Habán, Junge Kunst: mezi Francií a německou novou věcností, in: Anna Habánová (ed.), Mladí lvi v kleci. Umělecké skupiny německy hovořících výtvarníků z Čech, Moravy a Slezska v meziválečném období, Liberec – Řevnice 2013, pp. 104–117

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

Correspondence between the Modern Gallery and Maxim Kopf 1921–1937, Archive of the National Gallery in Prague, fonds Moderní galerie [Modern Gallery], sign. AA 1362/3, no. 133

Correspondence between the Krasoumná jednota and Maxim Kopf 1921–1937, Archive of the National Gallery in Prague, fonds Moderní galerie [Modern Gallery], sign. AA1891/1 a AA 1891/2

Anonymous author, Maxim Kopf und Mary Duras, Deutsche Zeitung Bohemia 100, 1927, no. 56, 8. 3., p. 5

Anonymous author, Maxim Kopf und Mary Duras, Deutsche Zeitung Bohemia 100, 1927, no. 58, 10. 3., p. 6

Anonymous author, Kopf - Duras - Ausstellung, Deutsche Zeitung Bohemia 100, 1927, no. 63, 16. 3., p. 6

Anonymous author, Die Kopf – Duras-Ausstellung, Deutsche Zeitung Bohemia 100, 1927, no. 66, 19. 3., p. 5

Anonymous author, Kopf-Duras-Ausstellung, Deutsche Zeitung Bohemia 100, 1927, no. 69, 23. 3., p. 6

Anonymous author, Maxim Kopf a Mary Důrasová, Čech, 1927, 6. 4., Archiv Národní galerie v Praze, fond Krasoumná jednota, sign. č. AA1502/1, novinové výstřižky z let 1916–1928 [Archive of the National Gallery in Prague, fonds Krasoumná jednota, sign. no. AA1502/1, newspaper clippings from 1916–1928]