2024-04-30 22:53:10
A new exhibition in Prague’s Kinsky Palace includes hundreds of works by old masters, such as Pieter Brueghel the Younger and Norbert Grund, as well as Czech artists from the 19th century to the present day. It starts this Friday, runs until October 27, and follows the theme of both skating and hockey in fine art. The National Gallery prepared it for the World Ice Hockey Championship, which will take place next month in Prague and Ostrava.
A show called On Ice! shows how, from skating on frozen canals, lakes and rivers in Holland in the 17th and 18th centuries, this social pastime moved to Czech territory. At the same time, it maps the development and importance of hockey as part of national identity.
“I am pleased that we are opening a topic that has not yet been more comprehensively processed or presented,” says gallery director Alicja Knastová. He emphasizes that the gallery situated the exhibition in a place associated with Czech hockey victories, especially the one at the Olympics in Nagano in 1998. The nation later welcomed the hockey players precisely on the Old Town Square.
The exhibition includes paintings by old masters as well as the most outstanding representatives of 19th century Czech art, August Bedřich Piepenhagen, Karel Purkyně and Antonín Barvitio. It shows Prague ice rinks by Tavík František Šimon, Otakar Nejedlý or Karel Holan.
Marcel Niederle’s drawings introduce visitors to the world of hockey and the first big games and victories, while the photographs remind us of the construction of the first winter stadium in Štvanice and many hockey moments.
The works of Krištof Kintera, Jiří Surůvka and Ondřej Kohout show how the 1990s, in addition to the success of Czech hockey players at the Olympic Games in Nagano, opened up new possibilities, which are manifested in hockey-themed art mainly with a critical and even ironic perspective.
Painting Hockey Players by Miloš Novák from 1946. | Photo: CTK
The exhibition closes with works created for this year’s hockey championship by nine contemporary artists. Among them are Jakub Špaňhel, Alena Kotzmannová, Jan Vytiska and Karel Štědrý.
“In addition to the classic treatments of the theme in painting and drawing, experimental artistic approaches by Jiří Kolář, Vojtěch Tittelbach and Teodor Rotrekl are also presented,” adds the curator of the exhibition, Anna Strnadlová.
Last but not least, visitors can look forward to the painting Sad Clown, whose author was the tragically deceased hockey player and coach Ivan Hlinka. The existentially-tuned self-portrait from 1984 can be considered a visual recapitulation of his career as a professional player, which was coming to an end at the time. On it are the jerseys of the teams he played for – the national team, Canadian Vancouver, Swiss Zug and also Litvínov. Hlinka played the most matches for him. He started and finished hockey in this North Bohemian city. He died in 2004 after a car accident, he was 54 years old. Two years later, his statue by Stanislav Hanzík was placed right in front of the Litvínov hockey hall.