Lukáš Machalický: Eclecticism Hour

Lukáš Machalický’s art is characterized by the purity of form, installation and architecture which seemingly excludes any spontaneity or randomness. Yet, deviations, balancing, ambiguity and systems that fail are a key factor in this artist’s work. It is not necessary to give specific examples of situations, the breadth is substantial – from banality to seriousness. Machalický’s exhibition on the historic principal floor of Colloredo-Mandsfeld Palace is a logical follow-up to his exhibitions In the Park (New Jörg, Vienna, 2018) and Body Immersed in a Fluid (MeetFactory, Prague, 2017). The strictly geometric composition and symmetry of the piano nobile calls for a kind of space mystification. Inevitably, the originally intended perfection is marred by fundamental faults and failures. Indeed, the false appearance, uncertainty or ambivalence is typical of this artist.

view to the exhibition Lukáš Machalický: Eclecticism Hour, Colloredo-Mansfeld Palace, piano nobile, 2019. Photo by Tomáš Souček
view to the exhibition Lukáš Machalický: Eclecticism Hour, Colloredo-Mansfeld Palace, piano nobile, 2019. Photo by Tomáš Souček
view to the exhibition Lukáš Machalický: Eclecticism Hour, Colloredo-Mansfeld Palace, piano nobile, 2019. Photo by Tomáš Souček
view to the exhibition Lukáš Machalický: Eclecticism Hour, Colloredo-Mansfeld Palace, piano nobile, 2019. Photo by Tomáš Souček
view to the exhibition Lukáš Machalický: Eclecticism Hour, Colloredo-Mansfeld Palace, piano nobile, 2019. Photo by Tomáš Souček
view to the exhibition Lukáš Machalický: Eclecticism Hour, Colloredo-Mansfeld Palace, piano nobile, 2019. Photo by Tomáš Souček
view to the exhibition Lukáš Machalický: Eclecticism Hour, Colloredo-Mansfeld Palace, piano nobile, 2019. Photo by Tomáš Souček
view to the exhibition Lukáš Machalický: Eclecticism Hour, Colloredo-Mansfeld Palace, piano nobile, 2019. Photo by Tomáš Souček
view to the exhibition Lukáš Machalický: Eclecticism Hour, Colloredo-Mansfeld Palace, piano nobile, 2019. Photo by Tomáš Souček
view to the exhibition Lukáš Machalický: Eclecticism Hour, Colloredo-Mansfeld Palace, piano nobile, 2019. Photo by Tomáš Souček
view to the exhibition Lukáš Machalický: Eclecticism Hour, Colloredo-Mansfeld Palace, piano nobile, 2019. Photo by Tomáš Souček
view to the exhibition Lukáš Machalický: Eclecticism Hour, Colloredo-Mansfeld Palace, piano nobile, 2019. Photo by Tomáš Souček
view to the exhibition Lukáš Machalický: Eclecticism Hour, Colloredo-Mansfeld Palace, piano nobile, 2019. Photo by Tomáš Souček
view to the exhibition Lukáš Machalický: Eclecticism Hour, Colloredo-Mansfeld Palace, piano nobile, 2019. Photo by Tomáš Souček
view to the exhibition Lukáš Machalický: Eclecticism Hour, Colloredo-Mansfeld Palace, piano nobile, 2019. Photo by Tomáš Souček
view to the exhibition Lukáš Machalický: Eclecticism Hour, Colloredo-Mansfeld Palace, piano nobile, 2019. Photo by Tomáš Souček
view to the exhibition Lukáš Machalický: Eclecticism Hour, Colloredo-Mansfeld Palace, piano nobile, 2019. Photo by Tomáš Souček
view to the exhibition Lukáš Machalický: Eclecticism Hour, Colloredo-Mansfeld Palace, piano nobile, 2019. Photo by Tomáš Souček
view to the exhibition Lukáš Machalický: Eclecticism Hour, Colloredo-Mansfeld Palace, piano nobile, 2019. Photo by Tomáš Souček
view to the exhibition Lukáš Machalický: Eclecticism Hour, Colloredo-Mansfeld Palace, piano nobile, 2019. Photo by Tomáš Souček
view to the exhibition Lukáš Machalický: Eclecticism Hour, Colloredo-Mansfeld Palace, piano nobile, 2019. Photo by Tomáš Souček
view to the exhibition Lukáš Machalický: Eclecticism Hour, Colloredo-Mansfeld Palace, piano nobile, 2019. Photo by Tomáš Souček

Michaela Vélová Maupicová (1982–2018)

The work of this prematurely deceased artist will be presented an exhibition prepared by the team of her colleagues from Prague City Gallery and the curator Petr Vaňous. This “artist and painter, sometimes reaching out to the object, installation and new media, has developed her own distinctive artistic expression consisting of ‘abstracted storytelling’, which can be described as existential. Michaela Maupicová’s drawings represent a spontaneously multiplying, restless, all-absorbing ornament, sometimes disciplined into symmetrical systems, sometimes running and spilling randomly over and outside the format, or expanding directly into space. Here there is an order in randomness, an enlargement that in a model situation of the given unifying element and its multiplication allows us to see our analogous idea of what is happening outside and inside of us.”

Michaela Maupicová, from the series Compositions VIII, 2018. Photo by Marcel Rozhoň
Michaela Maupicová, from the series Compositions VIII, 2018. Photo by Marcel Rozhoň
view to the exhibition Michaela Vélová Maupicová (1982–2018), Colloredo-Mansfeld Palace, 2019. Photo by Tomáš Souček
view to the exhibition Michaela Vélová Maupicová (1982–2018), Colloredo-Mansfeld Palace, 2019. Photo by Tomáš Souček
Michaela Maupicová, Oriment, 2010–2011
Michaela Maupicová, Oriment, 2010–2011
Michaela Maupicová, Structure, 2012
Michaela Maupicová, Structure, 2012
Michaela Maupicová, from the series O-prints III, 2014. Collection of the Klatovy Klenová Gallery
Michaela Maupicová, from the series O-prints III, 2014. Collection of the Klatovy Klenová Gallery
view to the exhibition Michaela Vélová Maupicová (1982–2018), Colloredo-Mansfeld Palace, 2019. Photo by Tomáš Souček
view to the exhibition Michaela Vélová Maupicová (1982–2018), Colloredo-Mansfeld Palace, 2019. Photo by Tomáš Souček

Jiří Hanke: Photographs 1973–2018

The documentarian Jiří Hanke (born 1944) deals with long-term, socially focused projects. His photographs have often been inspired by his native town of Kladno. His oldest closed photographic series is entitled People from Podprůhon 1974–1989 (published in book form in 1995). The historical value of documenting the lifestyle of a vanishing working-class colony was obvious even at the time of its inception. The historically grounded testimonies of human existence at the same time represent a general statement reaching beyond the borders of the given region. Hanke’s key series Views from the Window of My Flat consists of snapshots taken from 10 September 1981 to 10 January 2003 (published in book form in 1994 and 2013). An old double-portrait of Hanke with his father, whose photographic talent he inherited, led him to the series The Echoes of a Generation (1998). Since 1986, Hanke has extended it by other diptychs or more comprehensive series of portraits of parents and children. A cross-section of his extensive oeuvre, prepared on the occasion of Hanke’s 75th birthday, also includes his other series featuring classic black-and-white images: Paris Fragments, TV Image, Echoes and Periphery. The curator of the retrospective exhibition is Josef Moucha, the author of the monograph Jiří Hanke (2008).

view to the exhibition Jiří Hanke: Photographs 1973–2018, House of Photography, 2019. Photo by Tomáš Souček
view to the exhibition Jiří Hanke: Photographs 1973–2018, House of Photography, 2019. Photo by Tomáš Souček
view to the exhibition Jiří Hanke: Photographs 1973–2018, House of Photography, 2019. Photo by Tomáš Souček
view to the exhibition Jiří Hanke: Photographs 1973–2018, House of Photography, 2019. Photo by Tomáš Souček
view to the exhibition Jiří Hanke: Photographs 1973–2018, House of Photography, 2019. Photo by Tomáš Souček
view to the exhibition Jiří Hanke: Photographs 1973–2018, House of Photography, 2019. Photo by Tomáš Souček
view to the exhibition Jiří Hanke: Photographs 1973–2018, House of Photography, 2019. Photo by Tomáš Souček
view to the exhibition Jiří Hanke: Photographs 1973–2018, House of Photography, 2019. Photo by Tomáš Souček
view to the exhibition Jiří Hanke: Photographs 1973–2018, House of Photography, 2019. Photo by Tomáš Souček
view to the exhibition Jiří Hanke: Photographs 1973–2018, House of Photography, 2019. Photo by Tomáš Souček
view to the exhibition Jiří Hanke: Photographs 1973–2018, House of Photography, 2019. Photo by Tomáš Souček
view to the exhibition Jiří Hanke: Photographs 1973–2018, House of Photography, 2019. Photo by Tomáš Souček

Start up: Ondřej Vicena – 4D Carriage

Ondřej Vicena (b. 1988) is an artist with two complementary careers. In one, he works with arts and crafts, and in the other he creates works of fine art. In his installations, he goes in search of lost categories of beauty within archives of the visual garbage of recent history – trash both real and virtual. Today – in a manner reminiscent of Clement Greenberg’s famous thesis – we, too, are restoring the pluralist form of traditional categories of art through the intersection of culture with parallel expressions of high and low art, whose relationship has in the meantime been turned upside down. Ondřej Vicena is a graduate of Tomáš Svoboda’s Department of New Media at Prague’s Academy of Fine Arts (2018).

Ondřej Vicena, 4D Carriage, 2019
view to the exhibition Start up: Ondřej Vicena − 4D Carriage, Colloredo-Manfeld Palac, coach house, 2019. Photo by Tomáš Souček
view to the exhibition Start up: Ondřej Vicena − 4D Carriage, Colloredo-Manfeld Palac, coach house, 2019. Photo by Tomáš Souček
view to the exhibition Start up: Ondřej Vicena − 4D Carriage, Colloredo-Manfeld Palac, coach house, 2019. Photo by Tomáš Souček
view to the exhibition Start up: Ondřej Vicena − 4D Carriage, Colloredo-Manfeld Palac, coach house, 2019. Photo by Tomáš Souček
view to the exhibition Start up: Ondřej Vicena − 4D Carriage, Colloredo-Manfeld Palac, coach house, 2019. Photo by Tomáš Souček
view to the exhibition Start up: Ondřej Vicena − 4D Carriage, Colloredo-Manfeld Palac, coach house, 2019. Photo by Tomáš Souček
view to the exhibition Start up: Ondřej Vicena − 4D Carriage, Colloredo-Manfeld Palac, coach house, 2019. Photo by Tomáš Souček
view to the exhibition Start up: Ondřej Vicena − 4D Carriage, Colloredo-Manfeld Palac, coach house, 2019. Photo by Tomáš Souček

The Transformation of Geometry

The exhibition project of Prague City Gallery, entitled The Transformation of Geometry, employs the profile of two significant private collections – Sammlung Siegfried Grauwinkel, Berlin, and Miroslav Velfl, Prague – to present gems by outstanding Czech and foreign artists, based on reductive geometric or, respectively, structural concepts. For the first time ever in the given extent, it mediates the dialogue between two collection strategies in the framework of an identical subject, which at the same time opens interesting space for ponderings on what they have in common and in what they differ.

The Berlin collector Siegfried Grauwinkel has been building his collection for more than thirty years. Over time, he switched from its initially wider concept to Concrete Art and geometric forms in general, and currently also extends them with examples of Fundamental and Radical Painting. The collection of Miroslav Velfl, too, initially had wider focus. However, the collector in the recent years exclusively turned to Constructivist tendencies found in both Czech and foreign art from the period between 1960s and the beginning of the new millennium.

Exhibited authors:

Miroslav Velfl Collection
Anni Albers, Leon Polk Smith, Francois Morellet, Jiří Kolář, Max Bill, Camille Graeser, Manfred Mohr, Zdeněk Sýkora, Kenneth Martin, Karel Malich, Günther Uecker, Vladimir Kokolia, František Kyncl, Josef Hiršal, Hugo Demartini, Radek Kratina, Lev Valdemarovič Nusberg, Auguste Herbin, Dalibor Chatrný, Vladislav Mirvald, Kamil Linhart, Milan Grygar, Petr Kvíčala, Rita Ernst, Horst Bartnig, Paul Richard Lohse, Henryk Stazewski, Getulio Alviani, Richard Anuszkiewicz, Carlos Cruz-Diez, Cesar Domela, Anthony Hill, Richard Paul Lohse, Pavel Mansouroff, Mauro Reggiani, Jesus Rafael Soto, Fausta Squatriti, Jeffrey Steale, Victor Vasarely, Steven Aalders

Siegfried Grauwinkel Collection
Frank Badur, Imre Bak, Horst Bartnig, Hartmuth Böhm, Max Bill, Andreas Brandt, Max Cole, Suzanne Daetwyler, Piero Dorazio, Paul Uwe Dreyer, Rita Ernst, Günther Förg, Dan Freudenthal, Günter Fruhtrunk, Heinz Gappmayr, Johanes Geccelli, Kuno Gonschior, Camille Graeser, István Haász, Marcia Hafif, Herbert Hinteregger, Olaf Holzapfel, Alfred Hückler, Callum Innes, Imi Knoebel, Imre Kocsis, Matti Kujasalo, Adolf Luther, Gianni Colombo, Susanne Lyner, Ray Malone, Dóra Maurer, Manfred Mohr, Lienhard von Monkiewitsch, Francois Morellet, Jan van Munster, Aurelie Nemours, Kenneth Noland, Georg Karl Pfahler, Gudrun Piper, Henri Prosi, Rolf Rose, Reinhard Roy, Klaus J. Schoen, Christiane Schlosser, Elisabeth Sonneck, Renaud Jacquier Stajnowicz, Esther Stocker, Günther Uecker, Rudolf Valenta, Victor Vasarely, Heimo Zobernig, Jan Maarten Voskuil, Anton Stankowski, Betty Rieckmann, Bernar Venet, Mar Vicente, Ryszard Winiarski, Turi Simeti, Andreas Brandt, Stefanos Gazis, Kristin Gerber, Thomas Kaminsky, Jan Kotík, Christian Roeckenschuss, Peter Sedgley

Zdeněk Sýkora, Third Phase, 1997, serigraphy, 70×70 cm
Zdeněk Sýkora, Third Phase, 1997, serigraphy, 70×70 cm
view to the exhibition The Transformation of Geometry / Collections Siegfried Grauwinkel, Berlin and Miroslav Velfl, Prague, Municipal Library, 2nd floor, 2019. Photo by Jiří Thýn
view to the exhibition The Transformation of Geometry / Collections Siegfried Grauwinkel, Berlin and Miroslav Velfl, Prague, Municipal Library, 2nd floor, 2019. Photo by Jiří Thýn
Max Bill, heller kern, 1972/1973, Siegfried Grauwinkel Collection
Max Bill, heller kern, 1972/1973, Siegfried Grauwinkel Collection
view to the exhibition The Transformation of Geometry / Collections Siegfried Grauwinkel, Berlin and Miroslav Velfl, Prague, Municipal Library, 2nd floor, 2019. Photo by Jiří Thýn
view to the exhibition The Transformation of Geometry / Collections Siegfried Grauwinkel, Berlin and Miroslav Velfl, Prague, Municipal Library, 2nd floor, 2019. Photo by Jiří Thýn
view to the exhibition The Transformation of Geometry / Collections Siegfried Grauwinkel, Berlin and Miroslav Velfl, Prague, Municipal Library, 2nd floor, 2019. Photo by Jiří Thýn
view to the exhibition The Transformation of Geometry / Collections Siegfried Grauwinkel, Berlin and Miroslav Velfl, Prague, Municipal Library, 2nd floor, 2019. Photo by Jiří Thýn
view to the exhibition The Transformation of Geometry / Collections Siegfried Grauwinkel, Berlin and Miroslav Velfl, Prague, Municipal Library, 2nd floor, 2019. Photo by Jiří Thýn
view to the exhibition The Transformation of Geometry / Collections Siegfried Grauwinkel, Berlin and Miroslav Velfl, Prague, Municipal Library, 2nd floor, 2019. Photo by Jiří Thýn
view to the exhibition The Transformation of Geometry / Collections Siegfried Grauwinkel, Berlin and Miroslav Velfl, Prague, Municipal Library, 2nd floor, 2019. Photo by Jiří Thýn
view to the exhibition The Transformation of Geometry / Collections Siegfried Grauwinkel, Berlin and Miroslav Velfl, Prague, Municipal Library, 2nd floor, 2019. Photo by Jiří Thýn

Start up: Eliška Havlíková: Hungry, For more.

Eliška Havlíková is a student of new media, currently studying under Anna Daučíková at the Academy of Fine Arts in Prague. An associative series of visual text collages breaks free from the surface of the canvas and enters the gallery space. The artist uses strategies from the worlds of film and advertising, sophisticatedly combining and editing image, text, and sound.

Eliška Havlíková, Hungry, For more, video, 2017
Eliška Havlíková, Hungry, For more, video, 2017
view to the exhibition Start up: Eliška Havlíková: Hungry, For more. Colloredo-Mansfeld Palace, coach house, 2019. Photo by Tomáš Souček
view to the exhibition Start up: Eliška Havlíková: Hungry, For more. Colloredo-Mansfeld Palace, coach house, 2019. Photo by Tomáš Souček
Eliška Havlíková, Hungry, For more, video, 2017
Eliška Havlíková, Hungry, For more, video, 2017
view to the exhibition Start up: Eliška Havlíková: Hungry, For more. Colloredo-Mansfeld Palace, coach house, 2019. Photo by Tomáš Souček
view to the exhibition Start up: Eliška Havlíková: Hungry, For more. Colloredo-Mansfeld Palace, coach house, 2019. Photo by Tomáš Souček
view to the exhibition Start up: Eliška Havlíková: Hungry, For more. Colloredo-Mansfeld Palace, coach house, 2019. Photo by Tomáš Souček
view to the exhibition Start up: Eliška Havlíková: Hungry, For more. Colloredo-Mansfeld Palace, coach house, 2019. Photo by Tomáš Souček
Eliška Havlíková, Hungry, For more, video, 2017
Eliška Havlíková, Hungry, For more, video, 2017

Probe 1

The exhibition will introduce Czech public into one of the crucial tendencies found in modern and contemporary Slovak art. It will focus on the origination and development of Conceptual and post-Conceptual Art within the horizon of the past fifty years in Slovakia, i.e. from the alternative, unofficial scene of the 1960s to the post-1989 legal artistic platform. The oeuvres of two generations of artists, such as Viktor Frešo, Jozef Jankovič, Anetta Mona Chisa & Lucia Tkáčová, Martin Kochan, Július Koller, Marek Kvetan, Ján Mančuška, Roman Ondák, Boris Ondreička, Monogramista T.D, Rudolf Sikora, Pavla Sceranková, Peter Rónai and Jaro Varga, will serve to present particular forms of Conceptual artistic morphology, as it was shaped by the new aesthetic criteria with their codes, in the context of time.

The exhibition, held as a specific contribution to the celebrations of the 100th anniversary of the existence of Czechoslovakia, will go hand in hand with interventions by several Czech artists (Jan Brož, Alice Nikitinová, Vít Soukup, Pavel Sterec, Antonín Střížek, Michaela Thelenová) who will loosely contextualize selected historical, social, economic and world-view facets of our history. Their main subject of interest is the transformations of the internal social paradigm, presented the loss of the utopian outreach of our thinking in connection with the declining big ideologies.

view to the exhibition Probe 1 – The Story of Slovak (Post)Conceptual art, Stone Bell House, 2019. Photo by Tomáš Souček
view to the exhibition Probe 1 – The Story of Slovak (Post)Conceptual art, Stone Bell House, 2019. Photo by Tomáš Souček
view to the exhibition Probe 1 – The Story of Slovak (Post)Conceptual art, Stone Bell House, 2019. Photo by Tomáš Souček
view to the exhibition Probe 1 – The Story of Slovak (Post)Conceptual art, Stone Bell House, 2019. Photo by Tomáš Souček
view to the exhibition Probe 1 – The Story of Slovak (Post)Conceptual art, Stone Bell House, 2019. Photo by Tomáš Souček
view to the exhibition Probe 1 – The Story of Slovak (Post)Conceptual art, Stone Bell House, 2019. Photo by Tomáš Souček
view to the exhibition Probe 1 – The Story of Slovak (Post)Conceptual art, Stone Bell House, 2019. Photo by Tomáš Souček
view to the exhibition Probe 1 – The Story of Slovak (Post)Conceptual art, Stone Bell House, 2019. Photo by Tomáš Souček
view to the exhibition Probe 1 – The Story of Slovak (Post)Conceptual art, Stone Bell House, 2019. Photo by Tomáš Souček
view to the exhibition Probe 1 – The Story of Slovak (Post)Conceptual art, Stone Bell House, 2019. Photo by Tomáš Souček
view to the exhibition Probe 1 – The Story of Slovak (Post)Conceptual art, Stone Bell House, 2019. Photo by Tomáš Souček
view to the exhibition Probe 1 – The Story of Slovak (Post)Conceptual art, Stone Bell House, 2019. Photo by Tomáš Souček
view to the exhibition Probe 1 – The Story of Slovak (Post)Conceptual art, Stone Bell House, 2019. Photo by Tomáš Souček
view to the exhibition Probe 1 – The Story of Slovak (Post)Conceptual art, Stone Bell House, 2019. Photo by Tomáš Souček
view to the exhibition Probe 1 – The Story of Slovak (Post)Conceptual art, Stone Bell House, 2019. Photo by Tomáš Souček
view to the exhibition Probe 1 – The Story of Slovak (Post)Conceptual art, Stone Bell House, 2019. Photo by Tomáš Souček
view to the exhibition Probe 1 – The Story of Slovak (Post)Conceptual art, Stone Bell House, 2019. Photo by Tomáš Souček
view to the exhibition Probe 1 – The Story of Slovak (Post)Conceptual art, Stone Bell House, 2019. Photo by Tomáš Souček

Devětsil 1920–1931

The first and only exhibition of the Devětsil Art Association in Prague City Gallery took place in 1986, more than 30 years ago. František Šmejkal prepared it in collaboration with Rostislav Švácha and Jan Rous. Subsequently there was a number of partial or monographic exhibitions of the Czech visual avant-garde of the 1920s, e.g., Devětsil in Brno or Josef Šíma’s early work, but it has never before been presented as a whole with new research findings.

View to the Devětsil 1920–1931 exhibition, Stone Bell House, 2019. Photo by Tomáš Souček
view to the Devětsil 1920–1931 exhibition, Stone Bell House, 2019. Photo by Tomáš Souček

The upcoming exhibition, accompanied by a catalogue, wants to be not just a synthesis of previous efforts, but also to offer another point of view on this work. It focuses in particular on what was essential to Devětsil’s concept of art and its activities: a departure from the traditional concept of autonomous art, in which a key role was played by the Bazaar of Modern Art of 1923, an attempt (at least in projects) at intermedia productions, etc. The role of architecture, photography, film, theater and entertainment will be emphasized. The project will try to evoke the atmosphere of Karel Teige’s “ars una”. The second main objective will be to show the association’s actual contacts with the European avant-garde through their mutual visits, lectures, exhibitions and the magazines that became an important international medium for the exchange of information. As the concept of the exhibition suggests, the intention is to employ intermedia to better present Devětsil’s elements of style: architectural and scenographic models, film projections, sound recordings, digitization of the magazines and photographic reproductions are envisaged. “Classical” visual art and its presentation in a museum setting, will not, therefore, be put in the forefront, but live performance of the visual will be prioritized as Devětsil itself preferred (the exhibition will focus on selected key works, especially on mixed media techniques of collage, photomontage, etc.). This will be presented in the catalogue in a corresponding way, featuring not just synthesizing studies of architecture (Jakub Potůček) and magazines, typography and the genesis of Devětsil (Jindřich Toman), theater and scenography (Jitka Ciampi Matulová), film (Lucie Česálková), photography (Karel Císař) and freeform art (Alena Pomajzlová), but also color reproductions with comparisons, selected contemporary critical reviews, artists’ and authors’ quotes, and graphically differentiated additional information. Last but not least, the exhibition and the catalogue commemorate František Šmejkal, who died exactly thirty years ago.

Vítězslav Nezval, Alphabet, 1926, Muzeum umění Olomouc
Vítězslav Nezval, Alphabet, 1926, Muzeum umění Olomouc
View to the Devětsil 1920–1931 exhibition, Stone Bell House, 2019. Photo by Tomáš Souček
view to the Devětsil 1920–1931 exhibition, Stone Bell House, 2019. Photo by Tomáš Souček
Toyen, Night in Oceania, 1931, Regional Gallery of Fine Arts in Zlín
Toyen, Night in Oceania, 1931, Regional Gallery of Fine Arts in Zlín
Josef Šíma, Landscape with a Triangle (Landscape with an Obelisk), 1930, tempera, canvas, 149×99 cm, GHMP
Josef Šíma, Landscape with a Triangle (Landscape with an Obelisk), 1930, tempera, canvas, 149×99 cm, GHMP
view to the Devětsil 1920–1931 exhibition, Stone Bell House, 2019. Photo by Tomáš Souček
view to the Devětsil 1920–1931 exhibition, Stone Bell House, 2019. Photo by Tomáš Souček
view to the Devětsil 1920–1931 exhibition, Stone Bell House, 2019. Photo by Tomáš Souček
view to the Devětsil 1920–1931 exhibition, Stone Bell House, 2019. Photo by Tomáš Souček
view to the Devětsil 1920–1931 exhibition, Stone Bell House, 2019. Photo by Tomáš Souček
view to the Devětsil 1920–1931 exhibition, Stone Bell House, 2019. Photo by Tomáš Souček
Vítězslav Nezval, Alphabet, Muzeum umění Olomouc
Vítězslav Nezval, Alphabet, Muzeum umění Olomouc
view to the Devětsil 1920–1931 exhibition, Stone Bell House, 2019. Photo by Tomáš Souček
view to the Devětsil 1920–1931 exhibition, Stone Bell House, 2019. Photo by Tomáš Souček

GHMP Colloredo-Mansfeld

Due to the reconstruction of the roof, the Colloredo-Mansfeld Palace is closed to the public from 4 April 2022 until further notice. With its rich construction development, fusing the elements of High Baroque and the later Rococo and Second-Rococo adaptations, Colloredo-Mansfeld Palace is one of the most outstanding examples of palace architecture in Prague. The Baroque building, located at one of the most frequented sites of old Prague − next to Charles Bridge – grew on the foundations of a Romanesque and Gothic built-up area and a Renaissance house. Its owners included an array of interesting personalities, from Count Joachim Andreas von Schlick, who was executed for his participation in the Prague Estatesʼ rebellion, the Jesuit Order and the Elector of Saxony, the cruel Count de Breda, to Prince Heinrich Paul von Mansfeld-Fondi.

Between 1736 and 1737, the Prince invited Franz Ignatius Pree to rebuild the original palace, probably designed by Giovanni Battista Alliprandi, along the lines of High Baroque. The palace interiors then received their final Neo-Rococo look during the 1860s thanks to the Auersperg family who, around 1900, also transformed an extensive part of the palace into a luxurious rental house. The most beautiful and perhaps the best preserved space in the palace is its dance hall whose decoration was probably completed between 1736 and 1737. The ceiling fresco with the assembled Olympian gods was created by Pietro Scotti and Giovanni Battista Zeist.

The palace is not only linked with distinguished noble families but also many with many cultural and historical events, among them the last session of the royal council of the “Winter King” Frederick V., Elector Palatine, after the 1620 Battle of White Mountain.

During the period after the Second World War, the palace was used by the Czechoslovak Academy of Sciences, and it is today managed by the Prague City Gallery which is preparing its dignified reconstruction and will incorporate it into its activities.

The sightseeing tour, which opens the representative spaces of the piano nobile to visitors, introduces them to the history and the architectonic qualities of the palace and offers a unique experience of the spaces filled with the traces of history as well the complex relation of modern society to its historical heritage.

view to the exhibition Roman Štětina: Foreword, Colloredo-Mansfeld Palace, 2018. Photo by Tomáš Souček
view to the exhibition Roman Štětina: Foreword, Colloredo-Mansfeld Palace, 2018. Photo by Tomáš Souček
Colloredo-Mansfeld Palace. Photo by Tomáš Souček
Colloredo-Mansfeld Palace. Photo by Tomáš Souček
Colloredo-Mansfeld Palace. Photo by Tomáš Souček
Colloredo-Mansfeld Palace. Photo by Tomáš Souček
Colloredo-Mansfeld Palace. Photo by Tomáš Souček
Colloredo-Mansfeld Palace. Photo by Tomáš Souček
view to the exhibition Roman Štětina: Foreword, Colloredo-Mansfeld Palace, 2018. Photo by Tomáš Souček
view to the exhibition Roman Štětina: Foreword, Colloredo-Mansfeld Palace, 2018. Photo by Tomáš Souček
Colloredo-Mansfeld Palace. Photo by Tomáš Souček
Colloredo-Mansfeld Palace. Photo by Tomáš Souček

GHMP Zvon

The most recent architectonic and historical research has documented that the beginnings of the Stone Bell House date to the latter half of the 13th century when an oblong side construction was built behind the massive tower corner and its thick peripheral walls. The traces of the earliest construction stage survived in the cellars and on the ground floor of the southern wing of the house.

The second stage of construction followed around 1310, when a chapel with rich figural and ornamental murals on the walls and vaults was established on the ground floor. The reconstruction from the latter half of the 14th century resulted in a representative city palace with a tower corner which remarkably documents the activities of the north-French court masonry and represents a unique example of this type of architecture surviving in Prague. The dominant feature of the front façade, lavishly covered with Gothic elements, was sculptural figural decoration. Its iconographic programme celebrated the idea of the kingdom and the ruling family, which has often led to the assumption that the builder was a person from the circle active at the royal court. The characteristic house sign was situated on the corner of the building in the 16th century. The Baroque adaptations of the house date to the period after 1685 and to the 18th century. The demanding reconstruction of the Stone Bell House, when the neo-Baroque 19th-century façade was removed and the Gothic frontage was discovered, was preceded by extensive architectonic and historical research.

The reconstruction was completed in 1988 and the City of Prague then assigned the house to the Prague City Gallery, which uses it as a space for its significant exhibition projects. The building also houses a bookstore offering a wide range of publications and catalogues, while the café is situated on the rear ground floor of the house.

Stone Bell House. Photo by Studio Flusser
Stone Bell House. Photo by Studio Flusser
Stone Bell House. Photo by Studio Flusser
Stone Bell House. Photo by Studio Flusser
Stone Bell House – gothic cellar. Photo by Tomáš Rasl
Stone Bell House – gothic cellar. Photo by Tomáš Rasl
Stone Bell House. Photo by Tomáš Rasl
Stone Bell House. Photo by Tomáš Rasl
Stone Bell House on the Old Town Square. Period photo
Stone Bell House on the Old Town Square. Period photo
Stone Bell House. Photo by Studio Flusser
Stone Bell House. Photo by Studio Flusser