ART GALLERIES

Trade Fair Palace

The Trade Fair Palace in Holešovice is the main exposition hall of the National Gallery. The edifice was built 1925–1929 according to the project of Oldřich Tyl and Josef Fuchs. It held mainly trade fairs until 1951 when several export companies took up residence in the building. In 1974 this functionalist building was destroyed by fire. After its reconstruction in 1995 it became the main seat of the National Gallery. The art collections of the nineteenth, twentieth and twenty-first centuries are placed here.

On its three floors, the visitors can learn about the development of both Czech and international arts in the course of the last two centuries. The large halls of this functionalist building allowed exhibitions of more than 2,000 showpieces. The work of leading artists of Czech art are presented in monographic profiles through a selection of principal art pieces, but also though the works of foreign authors. An image of a particular period is also illustrated by examples of architecture, furniture, the applied arts, fashion, design. Photographs, drawings and graphic works concentrated in graphical cabinets, are also included.

Lesser known artists who have been neglected up until now or are yet to be discovered are presented alongside well established personalities. The stated objective of this institution is to find new contexts for presentation and it is supported by the innovative architectural solutions of the individual halls. A large number of short-term exhibitions are organised in the Trade Fair Palace throughout the year.

Strahov Picture Gallery

Important works of visual art from the fourteenth to nineteenth centuries can be seen in the splendid interiors of the Strahov Premonstrate Monastery. The monastery picture gallery was founded by abbot Hieronymus Josef Ziedler in 1836. The collection was exhibited there until the middle of the twentieth century, when the communist regime dissolved the monastery and the precious art pieces dispersed into state galleries or into the collections of other institutions. November of 1989 brought the restitution of church property, which enabled the return of the precious art collections back to the Strahov Monastery. The collection was renewed, a new exposition arose and was opened to the public in 1993.

99 of the collection’s highest quality pictures and sculptures are exhibited on the first floor of the monastery cloister. It is one of the most valuable monastic collections in Central Europe.

Complete sets of pictures and sculptures of Czech and Central European Gothic, art pieces of the Rudolphian period, Czech and Central European Baroque, Rococo paintings as well as the pictures by notable Czech artists of the beginning of nineteenth century are on display there. Holland, Flemish and Italian paintings of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries are also richly presented. The most famous picture in the collection is the Feast of Rose Garlands by Albrecht Dürer, which the monastery bought in 1793. At present, the original is exhibited in the National Gallery, but visitors can admire its copy here.

Sova's Mill

This remarkable gallery is located in Kampa, not far from the Charles Bridge. It is to be found in a place where allegedly the very first Prague mill used to stand. The first written record on mills in Kampa is dated from the year 1393, but mills clattered here long before. The present appearance of the building is based on design by Viennese architect Helena Bukovanska, the emergence of the gallery is the merit of Czech art collector Meda Mládková.

Modern inventive gallery spaces, the nature of which are determined by stainless steel and glass elements, have been created within this previously neglected structure. All spaces are connected with a steel staircase; a footbridge and handrails made of safety glass are part of a terrace with an unrepeatable view.

A water link with flowing water, which connects the gallery with the river, attracts your attention in the yard of the grounds. An artefact in the shape of a giant glass cube in a metal frame has been installed on the gallery roof with the help of a helicopter. A unique collection of modern arts is to be found in the gallery, especially the works of Czech painter František Kupka.

Meda Mladková donated the whole collection to the Czech Republic. The visual symbol of the museum should have been a four-metre high two ton wooden chair, a work of art by Magdalena Jetelová. However, the tragic flood of 2002 carried the chair away. In June 2003 a copy of the original chair made of poplar wood was placed in the same place. The flood postponed the ceremonial museum opening originally scheduled for September 2002 by one year.

House of photography Langhans

In 1880 Jan F. Langhans founded his studio of photography in a three-storey Neo-Renaissance house on Vodičkova Street, not far from the Wenceslas Square. Shortly after it became the most important studio establishment in Bohemia with numerous branch offices. Here Jan Langhans took pictures of the most important personalities of his time. In 1922 his archive comprised of about half a million photographs, after the end of World War that number had grown to one million. A Gallery of Personalities was created from these portraits of artists, politicians and entrepreneurs.

After the communist coup of 1948 and the subsequent nationalisation, the cooperative enterprise Fotografia took over the studio. At the beginning of the 1950s, the famous archive, at that time including about 2.5 million negatives, was brought to a dump site. Only in 1991 did the family receive the gallery back and start with renovation work.

Upon commencing this work, several boxes with glass negatives with portraits of famous personalities were discovered in an old cabinet in the outhouse. Approximately 8.000 negatives were saved. These have become the core of the new Langhans studio accessible also to the public in the exhibition spaces of a modern, 300 m2 gallery.

Original doors, windows, metal mountings and pavements as well as modern building elements of metal, glass and stone have been sensitively incorporated into the main building during its reconstruction. This successful reconstruction attempt was proclaimed construction of the year in 2003 and awarded Grand prix by the community of Czech architects. Today the house serves as a centre of photography again, with sale and photo services.