Bohéma Gallery in Prague exhibits portraits of personalities who have experienced both rise and fall
The exhibition Unknown portraits of acquaintances was created in cooperation with the Moravian Gallery in Brno and presents well-known figures of public life. Among them are, for example, Lída Baarová, Nataša Gollová, Vlasta Burian, Josef Čapek, Vítězslav Nezval, Karel Kryl, Waldemar Matuška, and contemporaries such as Marta Kubišová and Pavel Kohout.
Bohéma Gallery searches for little-known portraits of famous Czech personalities and then uses them to decorate objects with which it wants to strengthen national pride. Among the most famous projects are the t-shirts with portraits, which Bohéma started producing on the occasion of the centenary of the founding of Czechoslovakia.
The series of portraits of personalities from the period of the First Republic and totalitarianism, which the gallery is exhibiting until January 15, was selected by the curator of the MG photography collection, Jiří Pátek. “Successful people are for modern society a symbol of its strength and a source of (national) pride. However, it is enough for the political conditions to change, an economic downturn or another impact that destabilizes their system, and heroes who were supposed to be role models become victims of lambs, on the other hand, our anxieties and bad conscience are reduced,” said Pátek.
“All the personalities included in the exhibition have lived through periods of glory and crises. One day they were shining, they were successful writers, actors and inventors with whom politicians liked to shake hands, and the next day they fled to emigration, lost their jobs and were subjected to media harassment,” he added.
Among the authors of the portraits are important Czech photographers, such as Václav Jírů, Erich Einhorn, Alexandr Paul, Karel Hájek and the most strongly represented Dagmar Hochová. Nevertheless, some of these photographs are being presented to the public for the very first time.
“For us, this exhibition is to some extent a natural outcome of our interest in the unknown moments of the greatest Czechs,” said husband and wife Eliška and Oldřich Neuberger, the founders of Bohéma. “We enjoy searching the archives and from the very beginning of Bohemia we have been trying to discover unseen and so far unpublished photographs of great Czechs, through which we offer the opportunity to wear national pride on a T-shirt,” they said.
In 2018, when the centenary of the founding of Czechoslovakia was commemorated, the Neubergers wanted to show that they value their homeland, freedom and the Czech nation, but they could not find any clothes that would reflect Czechness with a dose of humility, respect and taste at the same time. The slogan Discover Czech heritage represents the activities of the association, which wants to awaken national pride by offering goods with a Czech theme. T-shirts with original motifs are mainly created by searching archives and collaborating with contemporary artists.