This highly atmospheric photograph is an image of the nave of Prague’s St. Vitus cathedral, framed by an arch on the north aisle, the vantage point of the viewer. Bathed in the streaming sunlight is the south aisle, partially occluded by the nave columns. The photograph, taken some time in 1926 or 1927, is part of a portfolio of images of the cathedral which Josef Sudek persuaded the design and publishing co-operative Družstevní práce (Co-operative Works) to publish. Continue reading
It is August and the family gathers in the summer house located in south Moravia. We start discussing current affairs in the evening and the obvious topics of Czech and British politics dominate as usual. This is followed by the inevitable complaints about the state of the motorway between Prague and Brno which has been in constant repairs for years and the end is not in sight. Someone suggests that perhaps a crew of guerrilla builders should finish the repairs on the motorway overnight. This is a reference to a guerrilla cleaner who recently, of his own accord, removed an illegal graffiti from the Charles Bridge in Prague. The National Heritage Institute had put together a several week long plan for the removal work which for them required a careful and laborious work under close supervision. Instead, one morning the graffiti is simply gone, cleaned by high pressure steam by a Mr Černý, an independent contractor. Continue reading
Ivan Meštrović (1883-1962) is best known as the leading Croatian member of the Vienna Secession before the First World War. A symbolist sculptor who was heavily influenced by the work of Rodin early in his career, he went on to develop a quite distinct expressive, hieratic, sculptural language, which, in keeping with his Catholic upbringing, was often imbued with religious themes and subject matter. Born in Slavonia (in eastern Croatia), he moved to Vienna in 1900 at the age of seventeen, where he studied under Otto Wagner and the sculptor Edmund von Hellmer, gaining his first exhibition with the Secession in 1905, and enjoying the patronage of Karl Wittgenstein.[1] Before the War he moved initially to Paris, then to Zagreb and then Rome. In many respects he can be regarded as a typical representative of the transnational art world of central Europe in the early twentieth century, yet this view runs up against his politics, which were strongly marked by nationalistic beliefs and his commitment to the promotion of Yugoslavism and political independence for the south Slavic peoples. Hence, when he gained international fame, it was as a Yugoslav rather than as a Habsburg subject. He won the grand prix at the Rome International Exhibition in 1911 but, provocatively, he exhibited in the Serb pavilion, with a cycle of sculptures including a depiction of the fourteenth-century legendary Serbian figure of Prince Marko, and a design for a temple commemorating the 1389 Battle of Kosovo Fields.[2] In 1915 he was granted a solo exhibition in the Victoria and Albert Museum in London – followed by another in the Grafton Galleries in 1917 – and exhibited again in 1919 in a group exhibition of Yugoslav artists in Paris.[3]
Krásná jizba, translated as “The Beautiful Room”, was a Prague based institution which advanced modern design in interwar Czechoslovakia. Founded in 1927, it was behind the promotion and sale of homeware products, such as dining and tea sets, glassware, furniture, and textiles, which put emphasis on functionality and aesthetic appearance together with their affordability. The newly refurbished Museum of Decorative Arts in Prague recently focused on this organisation in an extensive exhibition titled Krásná jizba dp 1927-1948: Design for Democracy, which closed on 3 March 2019. The curator, Lucie Vlčková, and her team presented the work of many designers, photographers and artists, including Ladislav Sutnar, Josef Sudek, Ludvika Smrčková, Toyen, or Antonín Kybal, indicating the extensive range of production of this key institution.
