Location

• Pivovarská 29, 440 01 Louny, Czech Republic
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Languages

• Czech

Website

• http://www.gbr.cz/

Name of collection

• The Collection of the Benedikt Rejt Gallery

Provenance and cultural activities

• The collection of the Benedikt Rejt Gallery began in 1965, a year before the institution itself. The core of the collection is centred on constructivism. The main reason for this is the fact that a number of Czech artists (Zdeněk Sýkora, Kamil Linhart and Vladislav Mirvald) and art historians (Josef Hlaváček and Jan Sekera) interested in this style lived in Louny. Jan Sekera, the head of the gallery, recalls that the first pieces owned by the gallery were collages by Jiří Kolář. After this acquisition, Sekera started to work on the official foundation of the gallery, which was possible thanks to a number of coincidences. In August 1968, after the invasion of the Soviet Army, the gallery became part of a nationwide cultural strike. Between 1968 and 1971 a number of the people behind the gallery left Louny for Prague. In 1971 Sekera returned to Louny and became the head of the gallery, a position he retained until 1987. Thanks to him, the gallery kept purchasing works by “unofficial” artists.
  
  In the 1960s the collection covered constructivism, graphic works and landscape paintings of the nearby České Středohoří. Until the end of the 1960s, purchases were made in symbiosis with the exhibition programme, and later works by unofficial artists (without the mentioned specialisation) were bought but not shown to public. It took until 1998, when the gallery building was renovated by Emil Přikryl, to make the collection accessible to public.

  It is hard to call the activity of a regional gallery “unofficial.” The exhibition programme was approved by a number of official committees; financial support came from the public budget. Still, the programme that took place in Louny could be called unconventional, and the acquisition politics even subversive. One example may be an exhibition of Catholic artist Bohuslav Reynek in 1968, or the purchase of Otakar Slavík’s painting right after he signed Charter 77. The unconventional approach to the rules of acquisition may be visible in the fact that works by abstract artists were purchased as applied arts (the wallpaper draft). As Sekera describes, it was important to buy works by “official” artists (socialist realism), to cover those who were unofficial.
  
  After 1968 the gallery built an extensive library with a number of foreign books on art.

Description of content

• The core of the collection is devoted to diverse forms of constructivism and kinetic art. The gallery owns a collection of Emil Filla works from the 1940s and 1950s that were not allowed to be exhibited at that time, and various examples of unofficial art made in the 1970s and 1980s. The gallery purchased a number of works on paper, drawings and graphics. The collection owns more than 17,000 works of art and 14,000 books.

Content

• graphics: 1000-
• other artworks (that cannot be classified by other filter categories such as paintings, sculptures, graphics, etc.): 10-99
• paintings: 500-999
• publications (books, newspapers, articles, press clippings): 1000-
• sculptures: 100-499

Operator(s)

• Benedikt Rejt Gallery

Owner(s)

• Benedikt Rejt Gallery

Stakeholder(s) of the collection

• Štefančíková, Alica

Topics

• avant-garde, neo-avant-garde
• fine arts
• visual arts

Founder(s)

• Hlaváček, Josef
• Sekera, Jan

Date of founding

• 1965

Place of founding

• Louny, Czech Republic
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Creator(s) of content

• Boudník, Vladimír
• Filla, Emil
• Grygar, Milan
• Hendrych, Jan
• Janoušek, Vladimír
• Karlíková, Olga
• Kmentová, Eva
• Kolář, Jiří
• Kolářová, Běla
• Kratina, Radoslav
• Medek, Mikuláš
• Načeradský, Jiří
• Nepraš, Karel
• Němec, Rudolf
• Sekal, Zbyněk
• Slavík, Otakar
• Veselý, Aleš
• Šimotová, Adriena

Collector(s)

• Sekera, Jan

Important events in the history of the collection

• Event (general): Opening of the gallery in 1998 after a renovation by Emil Přikryl
• Theft of Emil Filla’s paintings from the Peruc Castle

Featured items

• Filla, Emil. Slovak Folk Songs, 1948–1951. Paintings

Access type

• parts are closed to the public

Publications

• Galerie Benedikta Rejta v Lounech. 1968. Česká moderní grafika ze sbírek Galerie Benedikta Rejta v Lounech, Louny : Galerie Benedikta Rejta v Lounech.

  Galerie Benedikta Rejta. 1969. Galerie Benedikta Rejta. Louny : Galerie Benedikta Rejta v Lounech.

  Hlaváček, Josef, and Ján Seker. 1993. Poesie racionality: konstruktivní tendence v českém výtvarném umění šedesátých let. Louny: Galerie Benedikta Rejta v Lounech.

  Padrta, Jiří. 1966. Konstruktivní tendence. Louny: Galerie Benedikta Rejta v Lounech.

Author(s) of this page

• Lomová, Johana

References

Gruntová Kolingerová, Hana. 2013. Biografie Galerie Benedikta Rejta. Praha: Fak. Humanitních studií Univerzity Karlovy.

Štefančíková, Alica, and Nováčková, Zuzana, and Svoboda, Petr. 2015. Postava k otvírání. Louny: Galerie Benedikta Rejta v Lounech.

"Vizitky českých Muzeí a Galerií: Galerie Benedikta Rejta V Lounech — Česká Televize." Česká Televize. Accessed December 3, 2016. http://www.ceskatelevize.cz/porady/1130393955-vizitky-ceskych-muzei-a-galerii/203562268700010-galerie-benedikta-rejta-v-lounech.

„Výroční zpráva Galerie Benedikta Rejta za rok 2015.” Galerie Benedikta Rejta. Accessed December 3, 2016. http://gbr.cz/txt/zpravy/2015.pdf.

Galerie Benedikta Rejta. 1969. Galerie Benedikta Rejta. Louny : Galerie Benedikta Rejta v Lounech.