Databáze uměleckých výstav v českých zemích 1820 – 1950

The thirty-second members’ exhibition was an important event for the Prague Artists’ Association, as it was the first to be organized under a new name. The previous thirty-one members’ exhibitions had been held under the name Sdružení výtvarných umělců severočeských (Association of North Bohemian Artists) and had taken place both in North Bohemian towns (Hradec Králové, Ústí nad Labem, Lázně Bělohrad, Hořice v Podkrkonoší) and in Prague, where some of the members, originally from North Bohemia, lived and worked. It was precisely this connection with Prague that motivated the relocation and renaming of the association, which had been active in North Bohemia since the early 1920s. Another important factor was undoubtedly the artists’ desire to establish themselves in the Prague art world, after having failed to create the “autonomous cultural territories” in the borderlands [Votoček – Škvára – Zelenková, 1968, p. 1].

The art critic František Viktor Mokrý predicted this course of events as early as the beginning of 1929, in his review of the exhibition of the Association of North Bohemian Artists in Krasoumná jednota: “Even the North Bohemians, despite their promising talents, do not have a special local character. Many of them may very well join the Prague associations, each according to their own creed. Therefore, one cannot help but see in the provincial associations a phase of sorts in which the artists, in a defensive and defiant rally against the insularity of the Prague associations, unite against Prague, only to betray their regional centre and enter the gates of the city as soon as the time is ripe” [Mokrý 1929]. Here, the reviewer accurately described the situation not only in the SVUS but also in other regional art associations that were eager to “conquer Prague” at the turn of the 1930s.

The exhibition was held in the then still relatively new Sample Fair Palace, which was completed in 1928. It contained over 100 works by 21 artists. Like other provincial art associations, the Prague Artists’ Association did not have a unified program, but because its core consisted of relatively young artists, most of them born around 1900, the works on display were coherent in content and to some extent in style, as some contemporary reviewers noted. The critics were divided over the energetic entry of the “rural” association into the Prague art world. F. V. Mokrý, for example, condemned some of the works exhibited in the Sample Fair Palace as “of poor, if not zero quality” [Mokrý 1930]. Similarly, Jaromír Pečírka described the association’s artists as mere imitators of more famous artists.

One of the few positive reviews appeared in the weekly Legie. Emil Pacovský, a staunch supporter of regional art associations and editor of the journal Veraikon, also described the move to Prague as a fortunate step. According to him, the exhibitions or regional groups that settled or held exhibitions in Prague had a positive influence on the further development of Czech art [Pacovský 1934, p. 86].

B. S. Urban, an active member of the association and later its long-standing chairman, summed up the conflicting reactions to the first exhibition of the new Prague association by acknowledging that the Prague Artists’ Association, as “a new intruder, was not exactly a welcome guest in the consortium of art associations in the capital” [Urban 1934, pp. 29-30]. He also expressed the wish that the reviewers concentrate on the exhibition as a whole rather than singling out individual artists. Urban himself received the most critical attention. He exhibited thirteen oil paintings, including the abstract Blue Landscape, which must have stood out from the largely figurative motifs and impressionist landscapes of the other artists.

Although the critic Viktor Nikodem denounced the Blue Landscape as “inconclusive” [Nikodem 1930], it foreshadowed not only the development of abstraction in Czechoslovakia, but also the future direction of the Prague Artists’ Association. Soon after the 32^nd exhibition, Urban was joined by such artists as Jiří Jelínek, better known as Remo, Zdeněk Rykr, sculptor Zdeněk Dvořák, and later František Foltýn, who created abstract paintings and sculptures, and, in 1931, even attempted to organize a joint exhibition of the Prague Artists’ Association and Abstraction-Création at the Municipal House. This project was eventually abandoned and soon afterwards, most of the abstract artists left the association due to the conservatism of some of its members and formed a group called Kvart. Nevertheless, the association remained the first platform to bring together artists interested in abstraction. 

The exhibition at the Sample Fair Palace, which according to press reports was attended by President Masaryk, can be seen as an event documenting the efforts of a regional art association to establish itself on the Prague art scene. Although its arrival was received somewhat hesitantly, in the following years it managed to consolidate its position and become an integral part of interwar art history in Czechoslovakia.

Tereza Štěpánová

Works Cited

Votoček – Škvára – Zelenková, 1968: Otakar Votoček – Jan Škvára – Růžena Zelenková, 50 let českého výtvarného umění severních Čech, Litoměřice 1968, p. 1

Mokrý 1929: F. V. M. [František Viktor Mokrý], Sdružení výtvarných umělců severočeských, Venkov XXIV, 1929, no. 49, 26. 2., p. 8

Mokrý 1930: FVM [František Viktor Mokrý], Sdružení výtvarníků v Praze, Venkov XXV, 1930, no. 117, 18. 5., p. 7 

Pacovský 1934: Emil Pacovský, 1923–1933 (Poznámky k desetiletému vývoji českého umění), SV 34, sborník výtvarného umění, Praha 1934, pp. 84–87

Urban 1934: B. S. Urban, Deset let práce, in: SV 34, sborník výtvarného umění, Praha 1934, pp. 7–34

Nikodem 1930: N. [Viktor Nikodem], 32. členská výstava Sdružení výtvarníků v Praze, Národní osvobození VII, 1930, no. 131, 13. 5., p. 3 

Further Reading

 HR [Hana Rousová], Sdružení výtvarníků v Praze, in: Anděla Horová, Nová encyklopedie českého výtvarného umění, Praha 1995, p. 721

Hana Rousová, Sdružení výtvarníků v Praze, in: eadem (ed.), Linie, barva, tvar (exh. cat.), Praha 1988, pp. 17–20

Archival Sources

Prague City Archives, Spolkový katastr, Sdružení výtvarníků v Praze [Association Cadastre, Prague Artists’ Association, sign. IX/0720, box 391

https://katalog.ahmp.cz/pragapublica/permalink?xid=ED0A31E02D3411E0823D00166F1163D4&scan=1#scan1

Anonymous author, XXXII. členská výstava Sdružení výtvarníků, Rudé právo XI, 1930, no. 101, 30. 4., p. 6

Anonymous author, President republiky na výstavě Sdružení výtvarníků, Legie V, 1930, no. 18. 1. 5., p. 5

Anonymous author, Sdružení výtvarníků, Národní listy LXX, 1930, no. 66, 8. 3., p. 9

Anonymous author, Sdružení výtvarníků v Praze, Národní listy LXX, 1930, no. 143, 25. 5., p. 4

Anonymous author, Významná a zajímavá umělecká výstava trvá právě ve Veletržním paláci, Polední list IV, 1930, no. 135, 15. 5., p. 3

PVV., Další umělecká výstava ve Veletržním paláci, Hvězda československých paní a dívek V, 1930, no. 15, 12. 4., p. 2