The 13th of September marked the 100th anniversary of the death of František Gellner, a 33-year-old soldier (1881–1914) declared missing in action after the first military campaign on the Galician front in World War I. In his civilian life, he was a special and distinctive poet, essayist, playwright, caricaturist, illustrator and representative of the generation of anarchist rebels. His artworks were as provocative as his literary work – especially his caricatures rendered in abbreviated black-and-white. In these works, Gellner commented on contemporary social problems and the rigid politics of Austrian imperial Catholicism and its bureaucracy. The linear and surface features of his drawing in Art-Nouveau form added a modern expression to the caricature, opening the door for Gellner to the French satirical magazines Rire, Les Temps nouveaux and Cri de Paris. The graphic cabinet presents Gellner's drawings, illustrations and caricatures done between 1900 and 1914 and now housed in the collections of the National Gallery in Prague.
