The Karlovy Vary Art Gallery

The gallery is a specialist institution which, from 1953, has preserved, appreciated and brought to public attention Czech art of the 20th century through permanent and short-term exhibitions, aesthetic programmes and publishing activities within the spa environment of Karlovy Vary and its surroundings.

Over the years since its founding, the gallery has amassed extensive collections of Czech art. Approximately one hundred of the most significant and valuable paintings and sculptures are on permanent display. The early stages of the origins of modern art are represented by the atmospheric, Symbolist and Realist works of Jakub Schikaneder, Jan Preisler and Antonín Slavíček. The changeable and specific shape of artistic endeavours at the beginning of the century, oriented towards European trends – Expressionism, Fauvism, Cubism – can be found in the paintings of Josef Čapek, Emil Filla, Bohumil Kubišta, František Muzika, Antonín Procházka, Václav Špála and others. During the 1930s they were replaced by the Surrealist expression appearing in the works of Jindřich Štyrský, Toyen and František Janoušek. The war-time atmosphere of the following period brought new interest in man, the city and civilisation. The works of Josef Ister, Václav Boštík, Mikuláš Medek, Zbyšek Sion, Jiří Valenta and Jiří John form another important part of the gallery´s collections. They originated in the 1960s as a testimony to the problems experienced in human life and were created using various procedures, from the geometric and informal to the fantastic and neofigural. Evolutionally rich permanent exhibition of Czech art is completed by the collection of works by group 12/15 as well as by several outstanding personalities of contemporary Czech art – Zdeněk Sýkora, Karel Nepraš, Věra Janoušková, Olga Karlíková, Jaroslav Róna, Petr Nikl, Otakar Slavík or Stanislav Judl.

Short-run exhibitions programme features particularly contemporary art from the point of view of various generation and art approaches and focuses mainly on Czech works.