Databáze uměleckých výstav v českých zemích 1820 – 1950

In May 1926, almost three years after the Bazaar of Modern Art, Devětsil held its third and last exhibition in Prague's Rudolfinum. In several aspects, it differed from Devětsil's previous 1923 show. Although the critic Artuš Černík in his first review for Rudé právo from May 16, 1926 claimed that this show “contrasted with exhibition halls stuffed with boring colourful posters” – meaning the usual easel paintings – the third Devětsil exhibition seems less experimental compared to the Bazaar [A. Č. 1926, pp. 3–4]. Except for the plaster cast of the dancer Mira Holzbachová's leg, there were no ready-mades or other experimental objects that had provoked the conservative visitors and critics at the Bazaar show.  Devětsil's third exhibition also lacked an introductory programmatic text such as Malířství a poezie (Painting and Poetry) that Teige published in Disk I. The composition of exhibiting artists also changed. Much to Černík's regret, the painters at the exhibition did not include Toyen and Štyrský who lived in Paris at the time and, unlike Šíma, did not sent anything to Prague. Bedřich Feuerstein was absent for the same reason. On the other hand, the show featured authors of pictorial poems (Voskovec, Matoušek and Heythum), theatre artists (Frejka and Honzl), international guests (in addition to Man Ray who had been represented at the Bazaar of Modern Art, the third show exhibited Le Corbusier and Amédée Ozenfant) and particularly architects, many of whom were Josef Gočár's students from the Prague Academy of Fine Arts. The list included:  F. M. Černý, Havlíček, Heythum, Janík, Jiří Kan (Kahn), a Latvian newly settled in Prague, J. E. Koula, Rosůlek, Smetana, Stráník and Špalek.

Teige's explanation of the exhibition's concept in his review published in the fifth volume of the journal Stavba (1926) was complemented by another perspective from inside of Devětsil, Černík's second review in Rudé právo from May 23, 1926. According to Teige, architecture was to dominate the exhibition – it received its own and likely the largest hall. In addition to paintings and pictorial poems, the exhibition had a separate section for typography and book culture as well as a special theatre section where directors Jiří Frejka and Jindřich Honzl introduced Osvobozené divadlo (Liberated Theatre) as a separate part of Devětsil. This theatre section also contained watercolours of visual music by the composer Miroslav Ponc. In Teige's view, the third exhibition was meant to become “a manometer of sorts, clearly indicating the present state of modern art” [-e 1926–1927, p. 16]. The organizers' distinct tendency to sort the Devětsil production into separate sections [Honzík 1963, p. 75] soon led to the founding of the second special section of Devětsil –  ARDEV – which consisted of architects and was headed by the architect-theorist Karel Honzík.

The exhibition likely had no catalogue. However, we can still get an idea of what Devětsil members showed there from detailed reviews by Karel Teige, Artuš Černík and Bedřich Piskač, and from reproductions published between 1924 and 1926 in Devětsil's revue Pásmo, the second issue of Disk and the fourth and fifth volume of the journal Stavba. Reviews of Devětsil's third exhibition agreed that architecture was the most important component. Architecture “absolutely prevails at the exhibition,” writes Teige in Stavba [-e 1926–1927, p. 16]. The author writing under the mark “nn” for Styl [nn 1925–1926, p. 198] writes in a similar vein: “with small exception [the exhibition] is devoted to architecture” and the mark “N” in Národním osvobození [N 1926, p. 4] adds: “Architecture is the most likeable here, and also best represented.” According to Artuš Černík in Rudé právo, the show's architecture section was “the most extensive and best represented collection” [A. Č. 1926, pp. 3–4]; “without it, the exhibition would not stand the test,” says Bedřich Piskač who left Devětsil after the Spring Exhibition in 1922 and since then developed a critical attitude toward its activities [Piskač 1926, pp. 206–207]. Only Josef Čapek, whose relationship to Devětsil was as tense as Piskač's, wrote for Lidové noviny that stage design, largely represented by Antonín Heythum's designs, was as high-quality as the architecture section [-jč- 1926, p. 7]. Among the architectural projects on display, most reviewers noticed the works of Jaromír Krejcar, such as the Olympic (1926) and the competition project for the Workers' Accident Insurance Company (1924). In addition to these highlights, Piskač also appreciated a family house by Evžen Linhart and a small villa by Devětsil's newest member, Pavel Smetana, a “true little chef-d´-oeuvre“ [Piskač 1926, pp. 206–207].

From outside the architecture section, Piskač praised Man Ray's photographs – while the photographic abstractions by Devětsil member Jaroslav Rössler appeared amateurish to him – and he also appreciated two watercolours by Šíma which were “the same in quality as his nervous, cultivated drawings” [Piskač 1926, pp. 206–207]. It is worth mentioning that in his review in Stavba, Teige called these Šíma's works Surrealist [-e 1926–1927, p. 16]. Otakar Mrkvička's paintings, on the other hand, were condemned by Piskač as “simply embarrassing,” a judgment also expressed by Josef Čapek and Václav Nebeský in their 1923 reviews of the Bazaar of Modern Art. The pictorial poems, which Piskač calls “photomontages,” resemble in his view “the lovely little pictures...that young ladies used to make out of postage stamps, cigar bands and old illustrations from the German Woche” [Piskač 1926, pp. 206–207]. In his review for Národní listy, the conservative critic J. R. Marek adds that these pictorial poems “make you think of our soldiers' suitcases during the war with pictures glued on the inside of their lids” [Marek 1926, p. 10]. Without knowing it, Piskač and Marek revealed the deliberately amateurish nature of this specifically Devětsil genre. Jiří Voskovec – under the mark “N” in Národní osvobození – remarked that “this is not art and today, we truly need real art” [N. 1926, p. 4]. Josef Čapek, on the other hand, approached the pictorial poems with much less mockery. In Lidové noviny, he perceptively connects them with Devětsil's celebration of the modern metropolis: “What goes beyond the technical character of illustrated reviews in these glued arrangements is the lyricism of the composition on a single surface. This is basically a new, and in this respect original nature of the modern boulevard culture.” [-jč- 1926, p. 7] 

Rostislav Švácha 

Works cited

A. Č. 1926: A. Č. [Artuš Černík], Výstava S. M. K. „Devětsilu“, Rudé právo VII, 1926, no. 122, 23. 5., Dělnická besídka, pp. 3–4

-e 1926–1927: -e [Karel Teige], Výstava S. M. K. Devětsilu, Stavba V, 1926–1927, p. 16

Honzík 1963: Karel Honzík, Ze života avantgardy, Praha 1963

-jč- 1926: -jč- [Josef Čapek], Pražské výstavy, Lidové noviny XXXIV, 1926, no. 262, 25. 5., p. 7

Marek 1926: J[osef] R[ichard] Marek, Umění a psina, Národní listy LXVI, 1926, no. 141, 23. 5., appendix, p. 10

N 1926: N, Z pražských výstav, Národní osvobození III, 1926, no. 145, 28. 5., p. 4

nn 1925–1926: nn., Výstava architektury „Devětsil“, Styl VI (XI), 1925–1926, p. 198

Piskač 1926: Bedřich Piskač, S.M.K. Devětsil, květen, Volné směry XXIV, 1926, pp. 206–207

Further reading

František Maria Černý, [vzpomínka na Josefa Gočára], Architektura ČSR XXX, 1971, pp. 280–284

František Šmejkal – Jan Rous – Rostislav Švácha, Devětsil: Česká výtvarná avantgarda dvacátých let (ex. cat.), Galerie hlavního města Prahy, Prague 1986

František Šmejkal – Rostislav Švácha (eds), Devětsil: Czech Avant-Garde Art, Architecture and Design of the 1920s and 30s, Oxford – London 1990

Lucie Česálková – Petr Ingerle, Brněnský Devětsil a multimediální přesahy umělecké avantgrady, Brno 2015

Rea Michalová, Karel Teige: Kapitán avantgardy, Prague 2016, pp. 264–265