White Unicorn Gallery in Klatovyy
12. 2. - 9. 4. 2012

 In “Painters of Simple Motifs,” curator Jaromír Zemina follows several objectives. He aims to inform the public about three artists whose work represents the absolute pinnacle of modern Czech landscape painting, and also to satisfy viewers lacking a greater presence of true visual and painterly values within the contemporary art world. In terns of artistic quality and personal style, the work of Antonín Chittussi, Antonín Slavíček, and Jindřich Prucha can be compared to that of the leading foreign painters with a similar orientation and deserves to be represented more frequently in public collections than is the case today. For at least a short time, the exhibition in Klatovy manages to fill this gap. Its novelty rests in the fact that it shows Chittussi, Slavíček and Prucha’s works jointly while emphasizing their kindred nature: In a certain sense, Prucha was inspired by Slavíček and both were inspired by Chittussi. In addition to their pure painterliness, the artists’ works share a relationship to reality and to discovering the beauty of simplicity and everydayness, both in their rural as well as urban paintings (Chittussi primarily in Paris, Slavíček in Prague). All three artists thus founded a new and extremely important tradition in Czech painting – a tradition that also inspired the exhibition’s name.

 PhDr. Jaromír Zemina, exhibition curator