Databáze uměleckých výstav v českých zemích 1820 – 1950

From 1931 on, the Picture Gallery of the Moravian Regional Museum in Brno employed two notable figures: Jaroslav Helfert (1883–1972), the gallery's and the museum's director, and Albert Kutal (1904–1976), an art historian who would later become a professor at Masaryk University in Brno. Although Kutal established himself primarily as a specialist in medieval art, during the 1930s he built upon Helfert's earlier efforts, working to expand the collections and develop exhibitions of modern art, while also promoting them in his published writings. To this end, he cultivated warm relationships with leading figures of the contemporary avant-garde – particularly those with "some kind of connection to Moravia" [Kutal 1933–1934, p. 202] – whose works he sought to acquire for the museum's holdings. He also collaborated with prominent collectors and connoisseurs of modern art, such as Vincenc Kramář (1877–1960), director of the Picture Gallery of the Society of Patriotic Friends of the Arts in Prague.

Among the exhibitions that Kutal organized for the Brno Picture Gallery during this period, two stand out: the expansive "Exhibition of Gothic Art in Moravia and Silesia" at the turn of 1935–1936, and the project that followed almost immediately in its wake – The Unknown Emil Filla. These two shows were also the only ones to be accompanied by a catalogue. Kutal had been in contact with Emil Filla for some time before this, negotiating purchases of his works, as the artist was keenly interested in seeing his paintings, sculptures, drawings, and prints represented in Brno's museum collections. The two men likely crossed paths from time to time during the activities of the Group of Fine Artists (SVU) in Brno, of which they were both members. Their partially preserved correspondence – regrettably, only Filla's letters and some drafts of Kutal's replies have survived [complete edition in: Slavíček 2001] – reveals that Albert Kutal also acted as an intermediary in selling several of Filla's works to Brno collectors, serving as a trusted and reliable confidant.

Kutal informed Filla of his intention to organize a solo exhibition of Filla's work at the Moravian Regional Museum's Picture Gallery in a letter dated August 29, 1936. Unfortunately, the letter has likely been lost, so we do not know precisely how Kutal conceived the show. Filla responded warmly: "I would be happy to exhibit my paintings and one bronze with you. I have around 10–12 pictures, not yet shown anywhere, of a more naturalistic character than my usual work. I will add some similar drawings to fill it out." [Slavíček 2001, p. 66, no. VIII] The letter suggests that Kutal was interested in works that were lesser-known or entirely unknown – an emphasis Filla himself echoed in subsequent letters, expressing reluctance to pad out the selection with more of his previously exhibited pieces from Brno private collections. Both Kutal and Filla seemed to aim for works that engaged more directly with empirical reality than was typical of Filla's predominantly Cubist output, which was otherwise shown fairly regularly in Brno. To finalize the selection of works, Kutal visited the artist in his Prague studio on the afternoon of September 11, during his three-day business trip to the capital.

The exhibition opened on the evening of October 14, 1936, with an opening address by Albert Kutal; Filla was not present. The artworks were installed in the Picture Gallery's exhibition room, which had previously been used primarily for periodic displays of prints and drawings from the museum's own holdings. In his catalogue essay, Kutal acknowledged a certain temporal and formal heterogeneity among the exhibited works, noting that they are "bound together by an inner thread that forms a coherent whole — one defined not by a unified formal solution but by a relationship to reality that is closer than what appears in the well-known works from the beginnings of Cubism." [Kutal 1936, n.p.] The ensemble consisted of ten paintings, one bronze sculpture, nine drawings from the artist's studio (one drawing sent by Filla was ultimately not included), and seven drawings from the museum's collections. This was complemented by two paintings (cat. nos. 1 and 6) from the collection of František Venera (1901–1979), a Brno collector and secretary of the SVU, who self-published a major monograph on Filla that same year. Reviews in the press were largely positive. [Winter 2004a, pp. 57–64] The authors emphasized that although "Filla was closer to nature here than in his Cubist compositions" (Eugen Dostál), the observed reality in these works nonetheless "loses, to a greater or lesser degree, its connection to visual representation in the creative act" (Jaroslav B. Svrček). These works, therefore, remain "bound to the central concerns of Filla's art" (Karel K. Krejčí). The paintings "take on importance as an accompaniment to Filla's other, concurrent output, offering an intimate glimpse into the psychology of the artist's creative process. They cannot be called realist works – the still lifes in particular are entirely in keeping with the Cubist period; they merely explore the simpler possibilities of Cubist engagement with reality" (Zoroslava Drobná). At the heart of the collection were paintings and drawings from 1923–1929, a period when "Filla's work was permeated with an especially intense sensory engagement with reality" (Viktor Nikodem). The landscapes from the Turnov region and the shores of Lake Mácha, in which contemporaries perceived an affinity with the Old Dutch, Chinese, and Japanese masters, foreshadowed the artist's later turn toward the landscapes of the Bohemian Central Highlands. [Winter 2004b]

Attesting to its significance, The Unknown Emil Filla was reprised almost immediately afterwards at the Mánes gallery in Prague, running from January 8 to 21, 1937, as a companion to a monographic exhibition of Jiří Kars (1882–1945). Kutal's catalogue essay was reprinted in full — certainly an achievement for the young Brno art historian, although many Prague readers naturally assumed that the signature 'K.' was Vincenc Kramář's. The painting section of the exhibition was modified: the two paintings from František Venera's collection were absent, but a new canvas, On the Shore (1923), was added, along with a number of watercolours and drawings from the artist's studio, partly replacing those from Brno's museum collections that were not sent to Prague. The critical reception in Prague was more mixed than in Brno, with some decidedly unfavourable verdicts alongside the positive ones. The art critic and theorist František Kovárna (1905–1952) went so far as to describe the exhibited works – which "are defined by a greater attentiveness to the object than unity of vision" – as "a siding on the main line of Filla's painterly endeavour," and even "a piece of tragic error" [Winter 2004a, p. 62; Lahoda 2007, pp. 252–260]. Nonetheless, from the standpoint of the history of modern art exhibitions in Brno during the First Czechoslovak Republic, The Unknown Emil Filla secured its place among the most remarkable.

Petr Tomášek

Works Cited

Kutal 1933–1934: Albert Kutal, Reorganisace moderního oddělení Zemské galerie v Brně, Volné směry XXX, 1933–1934, pp. 201–202

Kutal 1936: [Albert Kutal], Neznámý E. Filla (exh. cat.), Brno 1936

Lahoda 2007: Vojtěch Lahoda, Emil Filla, Praha 2007

Slavíček 2001: Lubomír Slavíček, Neznámý Emil Filla. Fillovy dopisy Albertu Kutalovi z let 1935 až 1947, Umění XLIX, 2001, no. 1, pp. 61–80

Winter 2004a: Tomáš Winter (ed.), Zajatec kubismu. Dílo Emila Filly v zrcadle výtvarné kritiky (1907–1953), Praha 2004

Winter 2004b: Tomáš Winter, Od idyly ke krajině temnoty a příšer. České středohoří Emila Filly, Umění LII, 2004, no. 1, pp. 37–51

Further Reading

lš [Ludvík Ševeček], Z archívů, Prostor Zlín III, 1995, no. 6 (June), p. 4

Petr Tomášek (ed.), Naše galerie! Moravská zemská obrazárna (1817–1961), Brno 2022

Archival Sources

Masaryk University Archives, fonds B 30 – Albert Kutal, boxes 1 and 5

Archive of the Moravian Gallery in Brno, fonds Obrazárna Moravského zemského muzea I, sbírka negativů [Picture Gallery of the Moravian Provincial Museum I, collection of negatives], inv. nos. N 1201, N 1202 (views of the exhibition)

Archive of the Moravian Provincial Museum, fonds Obrazárna Moravského zemského muzea II [Picture Gallery of the Moravian Provincial Museum II], Box 1, file 27/1936, fol. 567 (Albert Kutal’s visit to Emil Filla’s studio on September 11, 1936), box 17, file 252/1936, fol. 716–725 (documentation regarding the transport of Emil Filla’s exhibition to Prague)

z. d. [Zoroslava Drobná], Brněnské výstavy, Index. List pro kulturní politiku VIII, 1936, no. 8, pp. 91–93

z. d. [Zoroslava Drobná], Brno, Volné směry XXXIII, 1937, p. 131

jbs [Jaroslav B. Svrček], Výstavka Neznámý Filla otevřena, Lidové noviny XLIV, 1936, no. 517, 15. 10., p. 7

Prokop Toman, Nový slovník československých výtvarných umělců I, Praha 1947, p. 221