2024-09-04 23:01:31
Friends knew Josef Kotrba mainly as an architect, a student of Jan Kotěra, who worked as a builder in Králové Dvůr from the 1930s. After his death, no one thought that he could leave behind a large collection of paintings in which he captured his optimism and naive vision of the world. The collection came to the restorer Tomáš Hejtmánek a few years ago, and now it is the second exhibition for sale.
“Something like this happens a few times in a lifetime,” says Tomáš Hejtmánek in the interiors of the house from the 17th century, which stands near the pub Na Slamník in Prague’s Bubenč. Cheerful, colorful paintings by the brush of the long-unknown painter Josef Kotrba are hung in several rooms, and one would not even think that he is in a gallery. The atmosphere here is like someone’s home.
“What I personally like about the paintings is that they are relatively optimistic. Kotrba himself styled himself as a naive painter, which can be seen mainly in the rounded figures and animals painted from all possible angles,” explains the owner of the auction house.
Kotrba’s self-portrait “Charlie Chaplin” and a painting depicting the unstitching of a soldier during the First World War. | Photo: Magdalena Medková
Hejtmánek exhibited part of Kotrba’s work at Arthouse for the first time last year and was successful with it. “Out of the 120 exhibited works, about eighty percent were sold, which does not happen to us even with better-known authors. The paintings appealed to people across generations, I remember an old lady who lived on a retirement pension, and she wanted one work here so much that she even despite her limited budget, she took it home,” describes the restaurateur, who is launching the second sales exhibition in a row on September 19.
He didn’t see the war in a depressing way either
His friends didn’t know much about Kotrba’s passion, also because he only began to fully devote himself to it in retirement. Until then, the renowned architect spent most of his time drawing sharp angles in his house in Králové Dvór, which, due to the fact that it flanked the highway, at one time considered razing the building to the ground. “We don’t know exactly how it happened, but we believe that Kotrba was preparing to be evicted, so he moved all his paintings and valuable documents to the attic of a nearby inn. But over time, no one remembered that there was such a thing,” says Hejtmánek.
The collection was discovered by the new owners of the house only a few years ago when they were clearing its land. At that time, they contacted the restorer to assess the paintings himself and, if necessary, get them among the people. “I personally like the naive style, and I felt sorry for those paintings. I saw potential in them. We embarked on a difficult restoration, which basically lasted until recently. Some works did not have frames, they were just canvases, others were in poor condition or dirty ,” says the owner of the family business, which, in addition to paintings, also restores furniture and other artefacts with artistic value.
Most of the paintings have a label with a description and date of creation. | Photo: Magdalena Medková
Kotrba’s paintings exude wit, insight and optimism. They are not connected by a specific theme. They capture the testimony of an old man who remembers his childhood, two wars and captures everyday situations from his beloved city. “It’s interesting that he didn’t even see the war in a depressing way. For example, this painting shows the removal of lice from soldiers during the First World War, and when you look at it, it’s quite smiling,” describes one of the scenes of the savior of Kotrba’s work.
According to Hejtmánek, we don’t know much about the life and character of the unknown painter. “We learned from eyewitnesses that he was supposedly a kind and optimistic person, which corresponds to the paintings. He was also smaller and people often nicknamed him Charlie Chaplin,” adds the gallerist, who estimated the price of the paintings to be in the lower tens of thousands of crowns, with the , that it could increase in value in the future. “But you never know,” he says.
Look at the photos.