Josef Sudek Gallery of the Museum of Decorative Arts

Info Telefon: +420 257 531 489
Besucher-Email: info@upm.cz
http://www.upm.cz...

April -September
Wednesday -Sunday 11 a.m.-7 p.m.
October -March
Wednesday -Sunday 11 a.m.-5 p.m.

The Josef Sudek Gallery is situated near Hradèany in a house, where Josef Sudek (b. 1896 Kolín n.L. — d. 1976 Prague) lived from 1959 until his death. Part of his photographic output was transferred to the MDA in Prague in the years 1978—1988. Since 1989 the MDA in Prague has also been administering the artist’s flat, where the gallery opened in 1995. Sudek had also a studio in Prague, Na Újezdu 28, which he continued to use for his photographic work (namely the black chamber) after moving to Hradèany, and where his sister and assistant Božena Sudková lived.

Sudek's flat was a popular place for friendly gatherings of many artists, among them the poet Jaroslav Seifert, painter Jan Zrzavý, architect Otto Rothmayer and many others. In the flat, which was gradually filled with numerous paintings, frames, goblets, boxes and photographic tools, originated many now renowned compositions in the series Aviatic Remembrances, Easter Remembrances, Labyrinths and Glass Labyrinths. This flat was also a departure point from which Sudek used to set off to roam the Prague gardens, parks and his beloved outskirts.

exhibition programme
Josef Sudek's work (photographic cycles, thematic series, comparative exhibitions), personalities of modern Czech photography, special focus on inter-war years history of photographic Pragensia from 19th century to the present day.
 

Kampa Museum - Foundation of Jan and Meda Mládek

Fax.: +420 257 286 113

Info Telefon: +420 257 286 147
Besucher-Email: info@museumkampa.cz
http://www.museumkampa.cz...

daily from 10:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m.

Meda Mládek was born in Zákupy in Northern Bohemia. In 1946 she moved to Switzerland, where she studied Economics in Geneva, and published jointly with other exiles from Czechoslovakia a magazine called Soucasnost (Present Time). She then moved to Paris, where she studied Art History at the Sorbonne and at L'Ecole du Louvre. In Paris, she set up the first Czechoslovakian exile publishing company, Edition Sokolova, whose debut title was a book on the Czech painter Toyen, written by André Breton, followed by a volume of verse by Ivan Blatný, and the writings of Ferdinand Peroutka. Jan Mládek was born in Poland in 1912, and studied in Prague. In 1939 he left for England, where he studied under Lord Keynes in London. Later on, he was asked by Czechoslovakia's President Edvard Benes to work in the U.S. for the adoption of the Marshall Plan after World War II. In 1945 he became one of the first Governors of the International Monetary Fund. Meda and Jan Mládek met in Paris in 1953, and in 1960 settled permanently in Washington, D.C. All throughout their life together, they never ceased to render support to Czechoslovak artists. Importantly, they also built a major art collection, a brilliant achievement that began with one small painting by Frantisek Kupka.

Jan Mládek died shortly before the 1989 Revolution in Czechoslovakia. It therefore, was up to Meda Mládek herself to fulfill her late husband's wish and present their collection as a gift to the City of Prague, and to reconstruct the historical premises of Sova's Mills (Sovovy mlýny), an old run-down mill located in the heart of the city, as the home for the collection. At present, Jan and Meda Mládek's dream is finally close to coming true, with the emergence of the Museum Kampa.

František Kupka Collection

This is a cornerstone of the Jan and Meda Mládek collection. Its price is today already virtually inestimable. It consists of 215 studies, drawings and paintings, and ranks alongside the world's most comprehensive collections of its kind, encompassing the artist´s lifelong production, starting with early studies and paintings dating from the 1890s, through sketches from the turn of the century, and expressive figure drawings from the period immediately preceding the stage during which Kupka embraced abstraction.

The collection also comprises various studies for book illustrations (e.g.,for The Song of Songs), and designs of decorative carpet patterns. Particularly fine items include a watercolor study for Bathing Woman (1906), or study for Gigolettes (1908 - 1909). Of key importance for Kupka's artistic development are purely abstract studies for Newton's Circles (1911 - 1912), and for the painting, Around a Point (1911 - 1930).

Of similar relevance are preparatory drawings for Fugue in Two Colors (1911 - 1912), as well as a series of studies for Cosmic Spring: Creation (1911 - 1920), for A Story of Pistils and Stamens (1911 - 1919), and for Four Stories of White and Black. Previously one of the Collection's finest - and largest - paintings, Localization of Graphic Motifs II (1912 - 1913), was donated by the Mládeks to Washington's National Gallery of Art, where it has since been prominently displayed. One of Kupka's most impressive paintings, in this collection and beyond, is Cathedral (1912 - 1913). Significant for the artist's development are studies for Vertical Planes (1912 - 1913), and Warm Chromatics. Meda Mládek's first encounter with the art of František Kupka took place at the time of her studies of Art History in Paris, in 1955, and she has been an avid collector of his work ever since then. Nowadays no major Kupka retrospective would be imaginable without a loan of studies and paintings from her collection.

Otto Gutfreund Collection

This is a section consisting of 17 sculptures by Otto Gutfreund, an artist whose genius attracted Jan and Meda Mládek over a long period of time. Art historian Jiøí Šetlík observes that the couple's thoroughgoing study of specialized literature was followed by collecting endeavors focused on the output of his Cubist period spanning the years 1911 - 1914, to which they added individual sculptures dating from between 1923 and 1927.

In the process, the collectors drew on their contacts with Jiøí Kotalík, then Director of the National Gallery in Prague. Their acquisitions were mediated by Artcentrum, at that time the sole firm authorized to conduct exports of art from Czechoslovakia. The Mládeks then purchased the collection in question (including even several casts of certain exhibits), and subsequently succeeded in gradually raising the international awareness of Gutfreund's creative legacy, as well as eventually in incorporating his work into several major sculpture shows and installations. Their collection came to represent a comprehensive body of Gutfreund's output (whose further enlargement was regrettably obstructed by the fact that from 1984 the Mládeks were once again banned entry into Czechoslovakia), which has since been publicly exhibited on numerous occasions, in recent years always in conjunction with the Mládeks' František Kupka Collection. Accordingly, the two collections are likewise being coupled now in the permanent exhibition of Museum Kampa.

Jiøí Kolár Collection

The output of Jiøí Kolár is very strongly represented in the Jan and Meda Mládek collection, which contains over 240 of his works from different periods. Rare early specimens include confrontages and raportages dating from the 1940s and 1950s. These items document the birth of the seminal principles which formed the groundwork for the artist's approach involving an overlap between verbal and visual expression. In the late 1950s and early '60s Koláø discovered basic methods that were to constitute the initial impulse of his entire subsequent production. The Mládek Collection contains early rollages, works made by cutting pictorial reproductions down to narrow strips and re-assembling them, combining various motifs. Likewise part of the Collection is a remarkable series of crumplages (muchláze in the Czech original), produced by crumpling reproductions and pasting them up onto paper surface. Another category of early works represented in the Collection are prolages, in which different motifs interpenetrate, an effect achieved by embedding images into holes cut or perforated within surfaces already covered with imagery.

An interesting group of exhibits in its own right is constituted by stratifies, in which the artist cut through several layers of color paper glued together. A technique that proved to be of the essence to Kolár's artistic development was that of chiasmage, a method involving the covering of a surface with fragments of diverse types of lettering and texts, musical notation or astronomical charts. Other forms include charming "unfastening" collages, and of course, various series of classically made collages. A unique collection within a collection is represented by so-called transparents, of which there are several here. Another section consists of objects whose surface is covered with collaging.

Kolár would seldom stick to a single technique, more often than not combining several different approaches. Meda Mládek devoted much time to the systematic study of Kolar's work. In the process, she concentrated chiefly on his output during the 1950s, '60s and '70s. This collection is definitely one of the world's most interesting as well as most comprehensive bodies of the artist's works. It has been shown in public on several previous occasions. In 1994 it made its debut appearance before Prague exhibition-goers, in the Czech Museum of Fine Arts, a show that was accompanied by a catalogue containing reproductions of all the works on display. The collection has likewise traveled a good deal on the international exhibition circuit, where it has attracted an ever-growing interest.

Collection of Central European Art

This Collection groups together art works by Czech, Slovak, Polish, Hungarian and Yugoslavian artists, dating mostly from the 1960s and '70s. Some of its sections have been supplemented with works by younger generations of artists. The collection's most extensive department, devoted to Czech and Slovak art, consists of groups of paintings, sculptures, objects, drawings and prints by major representatives of the generation of artists that emerged on the scene during the late 1950s and early '60s. Meda Mládek started to visit Bohemia and Slovakia in 1967 (after nineteen years in exile), when she was first permitted entry by Czechoslovak authorities. She then made a tour of artists' studios, only to find them, as she herself says, filled with brilliant art works.

Having promptly oriented herself on the country's art scene at large, she proceeded gradually to establish contacts with individual artists. These included Václav Cígler, Hugo Demartini, Stanislav Kolíbal, Adriena Simotová, Vladimír Janousek, Vera Janousková, Eva Kmentová, Magdalena Jetelová, Radek Kratina, Jan Kubícek, Karel Malich, Alena Kuèerová, Jiøí Naceradský, Otakar Slavík, Karel Nepras, Ales Veselý and others. In 1984 Czechoslovakia once again became a territory out of limits for the Mládeks. Beyond this country's borders, however, Mrs Mládek's travels encompassed other countries of Central and Eastern Europe as well.

Figuring among her Polish acquisitions from that period are for instance works by the now famous Magdalena Abakanowicz, and by Edward Dwurnik, Izabella Gustowská and Jozef Lukomski; in Hungary she made purchases from Akos Birkás and György Jovanovics; in Yugoslavia, sculptures from Ivan Kozariè and Branko Ruzic, and paintings from Mica Popovic. Jan Mládek died shortly before the downfall of the communist regime in Czechoslovakia, and Meda Mládek had to wait until 1989 before being able to return to the country. Since then, she has worked systematically for the setting up of a museum in Prague that would house her collection.

After a lengthy period of searching for suitable location, she was eventually made aware of the possibility of restoring and converting to the purpose the historic premises known as Sova's Mills (Sovovy mlýny - a former corn-mill on the Vltava river). Over many years in the past, Meda Mládek strove to support artists living and working in communist-governed countries, who were deprived of virtually any opportunity to sell their works. In the process, she carefully weighed every choice she made, paying several visits to each studio before making the final decision. The outcome of her effort has taken the shape of a collection that is unique both in terms of content and in that it bears the unmistakable imprint of its builder's personality.
 

Museum of historical mechanical musical instruments including mechanical gramophones and phonographs

Info Telefon: (+420) 736 507 750
Besucher-Email: muzeum@orchestriony.cz

Mon-Sun 9:00-18:00 h

Opened 2006. A unique collection of orchestrions, barrel organs, gramophones, music boxes and other rare exhibits from 1870–1940 are on show at the recently opened Museum of Musical Instruments on Hradèanské Square. The exhibition with more than one hundred items on display is accompanied by demonstrations of music played on the individual instruments and traces the development of the music industry from the very beginning.
The staff will give you a demonstration on any of the instruments in the museum, and you can see for yourself how difficult it must have been to get a pleasant sound out of them.

A special Czech and English speaking guide will accompany you as you peruse these works of art made by skilled craftsmen of a bygone era.
 

Museum of the Prague's Infant Jesus

Fax.: +420 257 530 370

Info Telefon: +420 257 533 646
Besucher-Email: mail@pragjesu.info
http://www.pragjesu.info...

Palais Vrtba with Baroque Gardens (Vrtbov Gardens)

Fax.: +420 257 531 480

Info Telefon: +420 257 531 480
Besucher-Email: vrtbovska@volny.cz
http://casusdm.cz...

April to October, daily from 10am to 6pm.

Vrtbovská Garden is a cultural landmark property of the first order, registered with UNESCO, and is a property owned by the City of Prague. Since 1999, Casus Direct Mail a.s. has been managing and operating the garden.

Located on the slopes of Petøín along with three other Baroque gardens (Vratislavská, Schönbornská and Lobkowická), the Vrtbovská Garden is one of Prague's most remarkable Baroque gardens.

This Italian-style, terraced Baroque garden was created between 1715-1720 next to the Vrtbovský Palace for Jan Josef, Count of Vrtba, the highest burgrave in Prague Castle.

 

Pedagogical Museum Jan Amos Comenius

Tel.: +420 257 533 455
Fax.: +420 257 530 661

Info Telefon: +420 257 530 935
Besucher-Email: pedagog@pmjak.cz
http://www.pmjak.cz/...

weekdays 10:00 - 12:30 and 13:00 - 17:00 h

The idea of establishing a pedagogical museum that would document the development of the educational system in our country occurred to the Czech teachers around the end of the 1880’s. This idea was realized together with preparations for the presentation of Czech schools at the Regional Jubilee Exhibition held in Prague in 1891 and preparations for the 300th anniversary celebration of J. A. Comenius’ birth in 1892.

The patriotic feelings, religious tolerance as well as modern pedagogical methods and forms of teaching (according to the pupil’s age and level of knowledge) were emphasized by giving the museum the name of “J. A. Comenius”.

The Pedagogical Museum of J. A. Comenius is considered to be one of the oldest museums in our country and at the same time one of the oldest museums in the world dealing with schools and educational problems.

The Museum is a member of the Association of Czech and Moravian Museums and Galleries, and of the International Museum Association EMYA sponsored by the European Council; it is also incorporated in the international system of libraries and information services.

Being the only pedagogical museum in the Czech Republic, the Pedagogical Museum of J. A. Comenius is now a part of The Ministry of Education of the Czech Republic. It also co-operates with other similar foreign institutions.

The museum keeps about 150 000 items, an extensive collection of three-dimensional objects, as well as rich photo archives.

Really valuable are the archives of paper documents, where you can also find the personal bibliography of leading Czech educationalists with other important documents from the field of pedagogy.

The museum library containing more than 25 000 volumes represents a large collection of Comenius’ works, old prints, monographs, professional publications, textbooks and pedagogical periodicals.

The museum collection has been recently enriched by Swiss archives of Pøemysl Pitter and Olga Fierzová. Another contribution, extensive archives of the World Organization for Early Childhood Education (OMEP), came from Norway.

A permanent exhibition, bearing the name “J. A. Comenius and the Czech School”, is presented in the exposition premises of the museum.
 

The Museum of Czech Literature

Fax.: +420 220 517 277

Info Telefon: +420 220 516 695
Besucher-Email: post@pamatniknarodnihopisemnictvi.cz
http://www.pamatniknarodnihopisemnictvi....

Great Exhibition Hall
Opening hours daily 9 to 5, closed on Mondays (maybe changed). Website out of date.

Castle Gallery

Fax.: +420 224 373 238

Info Telefon: +420 224 373 368
Besucher-Email: tourist.info@hrad.cz
http://www.hrad.cz...

Exhibition Rooms at Lobkowitz Palace

Fax.: +420 233 354 467

Info Telefon: +420 257 535 121
Besucher-Email: lobkovicky.palac@nm.cz
http://www.nm.cz...

National Museum

Toy Museum

Fax.: +420 224 372 295

Info Telefon: +420 224 372 294-5
http://www.muzeumhracek.cz...

daily from 9.30 to 17.30 h.
during the season.

The former Count's Chambers of Prague Castle house an exhibition of unique examples of old European and American toys on two floors. In seven large rooms containing sixty showcases, part of the family collection of Ivan Steiger, the film maker and cartoonist, can be seen. His Toy museum in the tower of the Old Town Hall in Munich has already been in existence for ten years and enjoys great popularity. Steiger's collection of classical toys concentrates on the 150 year history of toys made from wood and tin, of dolls, doll's houses and models of houses belonging to the middle-class and the nobility, reconstructed down to the smallest detail. The history of the "Golden Age of Toys" begins with coaches drawn by teams of tin horses, with cars and motor cycles, continuing with aircraft, airplanes, paddle-steamers and ocean-going liners and closing with toy trains, including the oldest Märklin engines, train stations and every accessory possible. Farms are populated by animals from the woods and fields, exotic wild animals are presented in a zoo and in circus rings and clockwork tin clowns bring to life a world of swings and roundabouts. In addition, the old teddy-bears deserve a mention, several hundred Barbie dolls, tin robots, steam-engines, Schuco cars, building bricks and games, physical, optical and musical toys and many other surprises, not forgetting the most famous and most valuable tin toy clockwork wonders from France, Germany and America.