Location

• Strahovské nádvoří 1, 118 38 Praha 1 - Hradčany, Czech Republic
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Languages

• Czech
• English
• French
• German

Name of collection

• Chalupecký Jindřich

Provenance and cultural activities

• Jindřich Chalupecký was a Czech literary and art critic, theoretician and historian. He could not publish after the Communist takeover in Czechoslovakia in 1948 as his writings and attitudes diverted from then required socialist-realism. However, his works could officially circulate during the short liberalization period in the 1960s. From the beginning of the 1970s, after the suppression of the “Prague Spring”, he once again became a “banned author”. Thus, he published in samizdat or in exile and foreign magazines. His texts were officially issued as re-editions or anthologies only after 1989.

  The Literary Archives of the Museum of Czech Literature acquired Jindřich Chalupecký’s written legacy successively between 1988 and 2014. Some manuscripts were sold to the Museum by Chalupecký himself in 1988 and 1989 following the Chalupecký’s agreement with Marie Krulichová, an employee of the acquisition department of the Literary Archives of the Museum of Czech Literature. At the end of the 1980s, when the control of the communist regime weakened, the Museum of Czech Literature supported unofficial artists and writers through similar purchases of their documents. This also enabled them to collect and store these materials for future historians. Chalupecký mainly sold his correspondence and manuscripts of his friends to the Museum. However, Chalupecký died in 1990, so the majority of his materials were donated by Chalupecký’s wife, poet and translator Jiřina Hauková in the 1990s. This part of the collection consists mainly of Chalupecký’s manuscripts, working papers, further correspondence and manuscripts of other authors. Some documents became part of the collection later, after Jiřina Hauková’s death in 2005. Jindřich Chalupecký’s papers can also be found in other collections of the Museum of Czech Literature and especially in the Archives of the National Gallery in Prague, which possesses Jindřich Chalupecký’s materials on the topic of Russian art of the 1960s and 1970s and texts about some Czech and Slovak artists, exhibitions and happenings.

  The legacy of Jindřich Chalupecký has been disseminating since 1990 through the prize named in his honour, the Jindřich Chalupecký Award. This prize, which was initiated by Václav Havel, Jiří Kolář and Theodor Pištěk, is annually awarded to young visual artists under 35 years old. The prize is managed by a civic association, the Jindřich Chalupecký Society.

Description of content

• The collection contains materials documenting Jindřich Chalupecký’s professional interest in Czech literature and Czech and European visual avant-garde as typescript copies, samizdat and book editions. The collection includes also his documents, manuscripts (studies, essays, articles) and photographs. An important part of the collection comprises of his correspondence. Jindřich Chalupecký corresponded with many important Czech and foreign artists or curators, e.g. with Václav Havel, Czech poet and painter Jiří Kolář, French historian of arts Maurice Besset, Slavic studies professor at Columbia university William Harkins, English compositor, poet Dick Higgins and many others significant personalities. Last but not least, the collection contains published documents as catalogues or studies issued in foreign journals.

Content

• graphics: 0-9
• manuscripts (ego-documents, diaries, notes, letters, drafts, etc.): 1000-
• photos: 10-99
• publications (books, newspapers, articles, press clippings): 100-499

Operator(s)

• Museum of Czech Literature

Owner(s)

• Chalupecký, Jindřich
• Hauková, Jiřina
• Museum of Czech Literature

Geographical scope of recent operation

• international

Topics

• avant-garde, neo-avant-garde
• fine arts
• literature and literary criticism
• samizdat and tamizdat
• visual arts

Founder(s)

• Chalupecký, Jindřich

Date of founding

• 1930

Place of founding

• Praha, Prague, Czech Republic
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Creator(s) of content

• Blatný, Ivan
• Chalupecký, Jindřich
• Ginsberg, Allen
• Havel, Václav
• Higgins, Dick
• Hlaváček, Josef
• Janoušek, Vladimír
• Janoušková, Věra
• Kalinovská, Milena
• Kantůrková, Eva
• Kmentová, Eva
• Knížák, Milan
• Koller, Július
• Kolář, Jiří
• Kolářová, Běla
• Kratina, Radoslav
• Meacham, Frances
• Medek, Mikuláš
• Mládková, Meda
• Načeradský, Jiří
• Nepraš, Karel
• Němec, Rudolf
• Palcr, Zdeněk
• Patočka, Jan
• Peroutka, Ferdinand
• Plíšková, Naděžda
• Seifert, Jaroslav
• Sekal, Zbyněk
• Slavík, Otakar
• Srp, Karel
• Teige, Karel
• Trinkewitz, Karel
• Vladislav, Jan
• Wilson, Paul
• Zoubek, Olbram
• Šimotová, Adriena
• Škvorecký, Josef
• Štreit, Jindřich

Collector(s)

• Chalupecký, Jindřich
• Hauková, Jiřina
• Museum of Czech Literature

Supporters

• Ministry of Culture of the Czech Republic

Important events in the history of the collection

• Acquisition of Jindřich Chalupeckýʼs correspondence by the Museum of Czech Literature

Featured items

• Allen Ginsbergʼs address, 1965. Manuscript
• Chalupecký, Jindřich. Marcel Duchamp: A Re-Evaluation, 1981. Typescript

Access type

• visits by appointments

Author(s) of this page

• Kůželová, Michaela

References

Macurová, Naděžda. 2015. “Písemná pozůstalost Jindřicha Chalupeckého.” Literární archiv 47: 336–338.

PNP. 2017. Výroční zpráva 2016." Accessed October 17. http://www.pamatniknarodnihopisemnictvi.cz/content/fck/files/VyrocniZpravaPNP2016.pdf. 

Společnost Jindřicha Chalupeckého. 2018. Accessed May 7. https://www.sjch.cz/.

The description of this collection was created with the kind help of the director of the Museum of Czech Literature (PNP) Mgr. Zdeněk Freisleben, the head of the Literary Archive of the PNP PhDr. Tomáš Pavlíček, PhD., and the curator of the Literary Archive of the PNP PhDr. Petr Kotyk.

ÚČL AV ČR. 2006. “Slovník české literatury po roce 1945: Jindřich Chalupecký.” Last modified May 27. http://www.slovnikceskeliteratury.cz/showContent.jsp?docId=389.

Kotyk, Petr, interview by Kůželová, Michaela, November 15, 2017. COURAGE Registry Oral History Collection