Museum Kampa, Prague

As a centrally-located, well-presented museum full of art by local artists, Museum Kampa is a great choice for art lovers visiting Prague.

Introduction: Meda Mládková and her Art Collection

As I wrote in a previous post, my recent trip to Prague was not my first. And so, having already visited Prague Castle, the Charles Bridge, and other main sights, I had more leisure this time around to see other places that interested me. Some of the things I saw, like the Maroldovo Panoráma, were a little obscure. Today’s subject is a bit more accessible both in terms of location and content.

Museum Kampa is a modern art museum housing a private collection. Specifically, it displays works from progressive 20th century art movements by Central European, and particularly Czech, artists. And the collection is that of Meda Mládek (or Mládková) and her husband Jan Mládek. But who were Jan and Meda Mládek?

Marie Magdalena Františka “Meda” Sokolová was born in Zákupy, Czechoslovakia, in 1919. She moved to Geneva in 1946 to study economics, and elected not to return to her home country after the Communist coup in 1948. In the 1950s she lived in Paris and ran a publishing house, Edition Sokolová. Its publications included the first monograph on the Czech painter Toyen. It was in Paris that she met Jan Mládek, a fellow economist and one of the founders of the International Monetary Fund (IMF). The pair married, and in 1960 decided to move to Washington D.C.

While in Paris, Meda had met Czech painter František Kupka and began collecting his work. The Mládeks’ art collection grew substantially over the decades. As well as being a personal passion, travelling to Czechoslovakia and purchasing artworks was a way for the couple to support artists who found it hard to exhibit their work and make a living during the Communist era. Jan died in 1989, shortly before Czechoslovakia’s Velvet Revolution. In accordance with her husband’s wishes Meda decided to donate most of their art collection to Prague, setting up the Jan and Meda Mládek Foundation and ultimately the Museum Kampa.

František Kupka: Key to the Museum Kampa Collection

So we’ve heard about Meda and Jan Mládek, but the only artist I’ve named so far is František Kupka. Who is he, and why is he important? Let’s start at the beginning. František Kupka was born in Opočno, then in the Austro-Hungarian Empire and now in Czechia, in 1871. He studied at the Academy of Fine Arts in Prague, and painted in a straightforward figurative style. When he studied at the Academy of Fine Arts in Vienna he became more interested in Symbolist and allegorical works, which were in fashion at the time. He also became interested in Theosophy and Eastern philosophies.

Kupka had settled in Paris by 1894. He worked as an illustrator and had drawings published in newspapers and magazines. In 1909 he was inspired by the Futurist Manifesto to make a first break from his figurative painting style. His works became more abstract as he became interested in theories of colour, form and Orphism (the connection between music and painting). Some of his early works were exhibited in Cubist exhibitions, but he did not want to be associated with any particular movements. Kupka’s interest in colour theory is a possible source of inspiration for later artists like Robert Delaunay. For much of his career he was supported by loyal collectors like Jindřich Waldes (and the Mládeks) but he did begin to enjoy more recognition in the years before his death in 1957.

As a pioneer of abstract art, Kupka helped to lay the foundations for modern art in the 20th century. The Museum Kampa represents his early work and journey into abstraction. You can see a selection of images in the two image galleries above. The earlier works are interesting but lack a distinct identity. One work reminded me a little of Sorolla. Another had hints of Klimt. The one with a battle between early hominids is unusual to say the least. But overall they are middling. It’s when Kupka begins to play with form and composition, to find harmony in colours and shapes, that he comes into his own. At the Museum Kampa he is the anchor artist around whom the story of avant-garde Czech art develops.

Modern Movements in Czech Art: the Zlatá Husa Gallery

There are five main exhibition spaces in the Museum Kampa. When I visited two displayed a permanent exhibition of works by Kupka and sculptor Otto Gutfreund. One had a temporary exhibition of contemporary art. The remaining two told the story of modern movements in Czech art through another private collection: The Goose in Kampa / the Collector Vladimír Železný.

The title refers to Zlatá Husa Gallery, or ‘Golden Goose Gallery’, which houses Vladimír Železný’s collection. Železný, a media mogul, has focused substantial resources over several decades into collecting modern Czech art. Exhibitions based on private collections are sometimes a little suspect – they bring such collections to a wider audience, but you also have to consider motives like legitimising collecting practices and increasing the collection’s value. I raise this here in relation to tax evasion when importing artworks (more info here). I know of no such concerns when it comes to the Mládeks themselves. But this paragraph takes us off on a tangent and we are here to discuss the art.

Železný’s collection again focuses on Czech art and artists. Železný himself has curated this selection, celebrating 25 years of his own gallery. There are some early works, but a particular focus on the 1960s. The earlier paintings are a little Symbolist, perhaps – unusual subject matter but still recognisably formally-trained artists. The later paintings are more idiosyncratic, and often unsettling, in style. Taken in aggregate, the collection fills in some of the gaps around the permanent exhibition of work by Kupka and Gutfreund. What other progressive artists were working on at the time. Their contemporaries. How modern art continued to develop with ever more freedom for artists to develop a personal style (if, of course, we discount the pressure exerted by the Communist regime). The four galleries comprising the two exhibitions hang together rather well.

Visiting the Museum Kampa

As a visitor, the Museum Kampa experience is a good one once you’re in the building. It was a little confusing before that point. The museum is housed in renovated historic buildings (more on this in a moment). It’s a bit like a compound with a main building and some outbuildings. The ticket office is in a bookshop in one of the outbuildings, but – to me at least – it wasn’t entirely clear where to go or what to do. We figured it out in the end, though, and found the correct route to get into the museum.

Once inside, it was fairly plain sailing. There was a temporary exhibition on the ground floor, which we had a quick look at but didn’t linger over. Then the two main exhibitions (the Kupka/Gutfreund permanent collection exhibition, and the one of the Zlatá Husa Gallery, alternated. A little backtracking, but nothing too bad. There is also a terrace leading off from one of the galleries with views of the river and cityscape.

The historic buildings are nicely renovated, so it is a pleasant museum to visit. It’s also a nice size. We weren’t too tired by the time we’d finished, although we did head down to the restaurant terrace at the base to have a refreshing drink. From here you can walk around the Čertovka (‘Devil’s Canal’), sometimes also called ‘Little Prague Venice’, or to other Old Town destinations. Set aside a couple of hours if you really want to take your time over it.

Kampa Island and Sova’s Mills

I mentioned historic buildings above, and that is what I am going to finish on. Because the Museum Kampa has helped to preserve a rather historic location in central Prague. Kampa Island is on the Malá Strana side of the Vltava River. It is an island by virtue of the Čertovka canal I’ve already mentioned: a man-made waterway designed to power mills. And the name Kampa comes from the Spanish for ‘field’: Spanish soldiers camped here during the Thirty Years’ War. So far, so historic.

Mills have stood on Kampa Island since the 10th century, part of the Benedictine Convent of Saint George. The first documented mention of them was in 1393. The site has had an eventful history. It was burned during the Hussite Wars, later becoming the property of the town of Prague who gave the land to Václav Sova z Liboslavi for his own purposes and to build a flour mill for its citizens. Then it burned down again and a nice Renaissance-style stone mill was built in 1589. Swedish troops stationed their artillery in the mill during the Thirty Years’ War, as well as those Spanish soldiers camping nearby. František Odkolek converted the mill to steam power in the 19th century.

The city took over the mills again in 1920 after yet another fire in 1896. After WWII the site housed the Czechoslovak Academy of Sciences. It became dilapidated in the latter part of the 20th century, however. Meda Mládek acquired the site in the late 1990s and it underwent extensive renovation and restoration to turn it into today’s Kampa Museum. Flooding remains a risk, but it is otherwise a pleasant, modern use of a very historic part of Prague’s history indeed.

Salterton Arts Review’s rating: 3.5/5

The Goose in Kampa: the Collector Vladimír Železný concluded on 8 September 2024