Czech Cubism Permanent Exhibition

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Czech Cubism Permanent Exhibition

The Museum of Decorative Arts in Prague’s permanent Czech Cubism exhibition presents it as a style that extends across fine art, applied art and architecture. The individual pieces of furniture and entire suites on display, together with furnishings and items made of ceramic, glass and metal, provide an overview of the creativity of Czech Cubism’s most important exponents. They include the architects and designers Pavel Janák, Josef Gočár, Josef Chochol, Vlastislav Hofman, Otakar Novotný and František Kysela, as well as Cubist paintings by Emil Filla, Bohumil Kubišta, Josef Čapek and Václav Špála, and sculptures by Otto Gutfreund. Contemporary and period photographs of Prague’s Cubist and Rondo-Cubist buildings and interiors document Cubism’s influence on architecture. The first implementation of Cubist architecture, the department store named U Černé Matky Boží (At the Black Madonna), built in 1911–1912, was designed by the then 31-year-old Josef Gočár for the wholesaler František Josef Herbst. The architect employed the characteristic Cubist idiom mainly on the entrance portal, dormer windows, wrought-iron grille at the entrance and the staircase balustrade; the illusive painting of the interior walls with geometric designs was equally compelling. Gočár also designed the interior of the café on the first floor that was dominated by heavy wrought-iron chandeliers, built-in furniture and a bar counter made of dark-stained oak wood. The 17th-century sculpture of the Black Madonna, formerly adorning the earlier Baroque building, was installed on the north-east corner of the new edifice, giving it its name.