The exhibition of the Academy of Sciences presents icons of Czech culture

Prague - The exhibition "Sense for Art" will, for the first time, showcase artistic works supported by the Czech Academy of Sciences. It also aims to present a rich overview of the creations of icons of Czech culture. Since its establishment in 1890 until 1952, the Academy, in addition to its research activities, also brought together visual artists, writers, and musicians. Their representatives awarded the most significant artistic achievements of the time with an annual prize.
    The exhibition will open to the public at the Salmovsky Palace in Prague this Friday and will last until January 10 of the next year. It has been prepared by the National Gallery in Prague in collaboration with the Czech Academy of Sciences.
    Among the awarded visual artists were Vojtěch Hynais, Mikoláš Aleš, Josef Václav Myslbek, František Kupka, Vojtěch Preissig, Josef Lada, and architects Kamil Hilbert, Josef Havlíček, Karel Honzík, or Josef Gočár.
    "Support for contemporary art today primarily takes place in the form of awards and scholarships for emerging and young artists. The prizes awarded between 1891-1951 by the Czech Academy of Sciences and Arts meant something different. They came as an expression of social recognition for artists who were known and established, initially for works created in the previous year and later, increasingly often, as recognition for their previous or lifetime work," said the exhibition's author Taťána Petrasová from the Czech Academy of Sciences.
    The exhibition also recalls awarded works in music and literature, such as recordings of winning compositions by Antonín Dvořák, Josef Bohuslav Foerster, and Leoš Janáček. Visitors can listen to recordings of the voices of Jiří Karáska from Lvov, Růžena Jesenská, Viktor Dyk, or Jaroslav Hilbert, recorded by the Academy in 1929, or even watch unique film footage of the Academy's members.