2024-09-04 18:00:32
After eight years, the public can once again visit the newly repaired Emil Filla Memorial Hall at the castle in Peruc, which is located in the Louna district. In 2016, it had to be closed due to the repair of the building, which was undertaken by the new owners. Last week, the art historian Tomáš Winter opened the premises in the south wing of the castle with the opening of a new permanent exhibition, which represents the rather late work of the Cubist painter.
“These are works that were created after the Second World War after 1945 until his death in 1953,” sums up Winter. According to him, Emil Filla’s cubist canvases are usually exhibited, unlike the late ones.
“And I think that they are of high quality and perhaps even more original than some of Fill’s classic works,” says the historian, who has been interested in the author’s work for many years. He prepared the exhibition with the architect Josef Holeček. Filla is one of the most sought-after creators on the current Czech art market.
However, visitors to the memorial hall at the castle will not be deprived of well-known cubist works, they will find them in the entrance area.
In one part of the building, Fill’s collectibles from Asia are displayed, in this case complemented by period furniture. The rooms are meant to evoke rooms for visitors, perhaps similar to those in which the author created. Everything is complemented by photographs of Josef Sudek, who was friends with Filla.
The historian named the exhibition Orel razzape orla, a quote taken from Fill’s work. “For me, it’s such a metaphor. For Filla, the post-war period was not easy at all, especially after 1948, when the communists took over power in Czechoslovakia and when his entire work fell out of favor,” recalls Tomáš Winter.
Emil Filla at work. | Photo: CTK
The painter, sculptor and art theoretician lived from 1882 to 1953. Because he was used to being in the front line of intellectuals’ struggles for the form of art, he was also among the first to be arrested after the arrival of the Nazis. The Gestapo came for him immediately on September 1, 1939. They first dragged him, like the painter Josef Čapek, to the Dachau concentration camp and then to Buchenwald.
Filla spent six years in the Nazi camps. Unlike Čapek, he survived, he returned in May 1945, but after several heart attacks. For another year due to illness, for example, he could not paint or teach, and thus earn money, Hospodářské noviny reported.
After the rise of communism, Filla tried to accommodate the new regime with failing health. In 1948, he joined the party, at least outwardly he remained prominent, and the state provided him with a wing of the castle in Peruca to work in, where he lived and created until his death after his seventh heart attack in October 1953. Nevertheless, the cubist Filla never fit into the column of socialist realism.
Thanks to the generous attitude of his wife Hana, who donated a large part of the estate from Peruca to the state, after her death the Emil Filla Memorial Hall was established in the southern wing of the castle. It first opened on August 3, 1958.
The hall is used by the Benedikt Rejt Gallery in Louny, which manages works mainly from Fill’s late period. In almost seven decades of existence, however, the hall was closed for almost half of the time due to construction-technical and property reasons. Most recently, due to a lawsuit between the Loune gallery and the new owner of the Peruc castle.
The rooms in the memorial hall are supposed to evoke rooms, perhaps similar to those in which Emil Filla created. | Photo: CTK
Dominika Matušová took ownership of the monument in autumn 2015 and informed the representatives of the region that she would repair it. But when part of the building opened to the public in 2020, the hall remained inaccessible.
The gallery, which is a contributory organization of the Ústí Region, sued the new owner of the castle and demanded its return through the courts. In 2021, the court decided without jurisdiction that the owner is obliged to make the hall accessible.
In 2022, the two sides made peace and a settlement agreement. The operator of the castle, Pavel Ondráček, now says that the investment in the memorial hall is around five million crowns. There are still some final adjustments left, which will start in a few months.
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