Databáze uměleckých výstav v českých zemích 1820 – 1950

In 1927, the Liberec-based Oktobergruppe presented their works in the Mánes exhibition hall, under the motto “Freedom to Creativity and Battle to Dilettantism,” which appeared in a folded double sheet with the list of exhibited artworks serving as a catalogue. The founding members Rudolf Karasek, Alfred Kunft, Erwin Müller and Hans Thum, who first met in Liberec in October 1922, were joined by other authors connected with the Liberec region: Alfred Dorn, Karl Kaschak and Richard Fleissner. In contrast to the group's previous exhibitions, the works of sculptors Johannes Watzal, Wilhelm Srb-Schlossbauer and painters Wenzel Franz Jäger and Edith Plischke-Fleissner were not included in the selection. The show consisted of 59 oil paintings, watercolours and prints complemented by a folder containing nine prints by the group members, now kept in the collection of the National Gallery Prague. The Modern Gallery, the National Gallery’s predecessor, acquired nine more oil paintings and works on paper from the exhibition. Three of the exhibited artworks are in the collection of the Regional Gallery in Liberec. This was the group’s first show outside Liberec and also the last we know of. As Josef Čapek writes in his report about the exhibition, it was the only presentation of “our German art that the Mánes Association organized in its Mánes Hall” [Čapek 1927].

For the Oktobergruppe, this was an exceptional opportunity to exhibit outside the North-Bohemian region, so we may assume the artists conceived it as a retrospective, offering the Prague public not only their newest works, but rather an overview of their respective oeuvres. In his review for the Prager Presse, Jaromír Pečírka summarized the artists’ common features as dependence on contemporary, especially German art. In the case of Erwin Müller, he saw the influence of New Objectivity. Pečírka also commented on Alfred Kunft’s exotic inspiration which, in his view, stemmed from the artist’s personal experience in Eastern Asia. The highlights of the exhibition, wrote Pečírka, were a floral still life and a figural scene by Karasek, along with oil paintings by Alfred Dorn. Pečírka thought Karl Kaschak’s portraits were well-grounded, albeit still relatively “altertümlich”, while Richard Fleissner was an average print maker in Pečírka’s eyes [Pečírka 1927].

Josef Čapek’s review for Lidové noviny underlines the artists’ German origin: “They are quite interesting, although they hardly bring a great artistic message. This is courageous and simultaneously well-grounded painting, characteristic of Germans; it is evident that there is a certain discipline, high standard and ambition in the group to display only their best, proper technique and drawing to achieve maximum appeal, whether it is still in the spirit of Vienna, or picturesque Expressionism, or genre-like classicism. All of it, more or less diverse … whether intellectual or just descriptively picturesque and storylike, bears a distinct German stamp which seems quite surprising at first sight, even if in all the cases its value is not entirely penetrating and convincing.” [Čapek 1927]

Čapek’s words stem from the persistent divide between the two nations, rooted deep in the 19^th century, that marked artistic and exhibition life in interwar Czechoslovakia. When examining the exhibited works, Čapek tried to define the difference between Czech and German artistic expressions and to find otherness in the work of German speaking artists in Bohemia, Moravia and Silesia. Such an approach negatively influenced the general perception of Czech-German artistic relations, a complex set of problems that have yet to be fully untangled in the current art-historical discourse.

Anna Habánová

Works Cited

Pečírka 1927: Jaromír Pečírka, Prager Ausstellungen. Metznerbund, Prager Presse VII, 1927, 20. 11., p. 10

Čapek 1927: jč [Josef Čapek] Výstava Skupiny Metznerbundu Oktobergruppe z Liberce, Lidové noviny XXXV, 1927, no. 579, 17. 11., p. 7

Further Reading

Anna Habánová, Oktobergruppe, in: eadem (ed.), Mladí lvi v kleci. Umělecké skupiny německy hovořících výtvarníků z Čech, Moravy a Slezska v meziválečném období (exh. cat.), Oblastní galerie v Liberci, Řevnice – Liberec 2013, pp. 80–93