The End of the Black-and-White Era is not a
comprehensive title for the years 1939–2021 but rather a slogan summarizing an
approach that seeks to avoid premature ideological appraisal of the surveyed
material from this often painful time. The aim is to show that art has always
included multiple and parallel conceptions of artistic quality. The basic
polarities of the art of those times – official and unofficial, abstract and
figurative, formal and socially engaged – mutually conditioned each other’s
existence but almost never existed as black-and-white maximums. The
chronological development thus lets visitors observe how quickly the idea of
quality changed over time, even for individual artists. The permanent
exhibition presents art as testimony of the times: the result of not only
purely authorial but also social, political, and economic forces. It consists
of more than 300 works solely from the collection of the NGP without any loans.
It also offers a methodology that is not based on a hierarchical selection of
the very best art, but on an attempt to understand the motives behind what art
was being made at the time and why; this is complemented by examples of
exhibitions as well as acquisition stories.
Collection Histories: Mexican Prints and the Cold War
29/5 2025 – 24/5 2026
The new twelve-drawer display of Mexican prints within the collection display 1939–2021: The End of the Black-and-White Era traces the links between Mexico and Czechoslovakia through various encounters, personalities, exhibitions, and acquisitions during the period of the Cold War (1947–1991). Particularly in the 1950s, the socially engaged, figurative, yet imaginative Mexican art – averse to the abstract art championed by the USA – provided artists in the Eastern bloc, including Czechoslovakia, with a dignified alternative to the Soviet model of Socialist Realism. Moreover, thanks to the 1948 and 1954 exhibitions of prints and the 1956 touring exhibition of Mexican art, many artists in Czechoslovakia had a first-hand knowledge of contemporary Mexican art.
The display presents works on paper by the representative of Mexican muralism, such as Diego Rivera, David Alfaro Siqueiros, José Clemente Orozco, and Pablo O’Higgins, as well as graphic artists associated with the Taller de Gráfica Popular (People's Graphic Workshop), such as Leopoldo Méndez, Francisco Mora, Alfredo Zalce, Luis Arenal, Arturo Garcia Bustos, Mariana Yampolsky, María Luisa Martín, Adolfo Mexiac, Elizabeth Catlett, Ignacio Aguirre, Sarah Jiménez and Andrea Goméz.
Collection Histories: Mexican Prints and the Cold War
29/5 2025 – 24/5 2026
The new twelve-drawer display of Mexican prints within the collection display 1939–2021: The End of the Black-and-White Era traces the links between Mexico and Czechoslovakia through various encounters, personalities, exhibitions, and acquisitions during the period of the Cold War (1947–1991). Particularly in the 1950s, the socially engaged, figurative, yet imaginative Mexican art – averse to the abstract art championed by the USA – provided artists in the Eastern bloc, including Czechoslovakia, with a dignified alternative to the Soviet model of Socialist Realism. Moreover, thanks to the 1948 and 1954 exhibitions of prints and the 1956 touring exhibition of Mexican art, many artists in Czechoslovakia had a first-hand knowledge of contemporary Mexican art.
The display presents works on paper by the representative of Mexican muralism, such as Diego Rivera, David Alfaro Siqueiros, José Clemente Orozco, and Pablo O’Higgins, as well as graphic artists associated with the Taller de Gráfica Popular (People's Graphic Workshop), such as Leopoldo Méndez, Francisco Mora, Alfredo Zalce, Luis Arenal, Arturo Garcia Bustos, Mariana Yampolsky, María Luisa Martín, Adolfo Mexiac, Elizabeth Catlett, Ignacio Aguirre, Sarah Jiménez and Andrea Goméz.
