Meda Mládková allegedly always accomplishes what she sets her mind to

Prague - She dedicated her entire life to culture and supporting artists from former Czechoslovakia, who were not favored by the totalitarian regime. The art collector and patron Meda Mládková, who will celebrate her 90th birthday on September 8, has amassed a vast collection of modern art together with her husband during her lifetime. Some time ago, she fought for a building in Prague and established a museum there. The famous gallerist has "artistic" plans for the future as well.
    "If culture survives, the nation survives." This is the motto that the once exiled collector adopted as her own. Although Meda Mládková lived abroad for many decades, she always felt like a Czech patriot. As she herself says, her husband, Jan Mládek, an economist and longtime employee of the International Monetary Fund in Washington, made her that way. Together with him, Mládková devoted her life to collecting works of art by Czech authors of the 20th century. In the USA, where she lived since 1960, Mládková also organized a number of exhibitions of Czech and Slovak artists.
    According to experts, the Mládek collection is a valuable artistic ensemble. It includes around 1200 works by Czech artists. The highlight of the collection comprises paintings and drawings by František Kupka, a world-renowned pioneer of abstraction. In addition to Kupka, the collection also includes sculptures by cubist sculptor Otto Gutfreund and works by artist Jiří Kolář. The accounting value of the collection is estimated by officials at 380 million Czech crowns.
    After her husband's death in 1989, Mládková decided to fulfill his wish and donate the entire collection to Prague. Immediately after the revolution, she chose the then-dilapidated building of the Sovovy mlýny on Prague's Kampa and established the Meda and Jan Mládek Foundation. However, the significance of the donation was gradually overshadowed by a protracted dispute over the final appearance of the building, which Mládková had with the authorities.
    The core of the dispute became a glass cube that the collector wished to place on the stairwell tower. The cube and other glass extensions caused an uproar among conservationists. The glass artifact protruded three meters above the building's roof and, according to conservationists, altered the appearance of the Lesser Town panorama. Leading the opposition against the reconstruction of the Sovovy mlýny was Milan Knížák, the director of the National Gallery, who allegedly wrote to Mládková that she could "load her paintings into American vinegar." He considered the collection itself as "a small collection, which is, with exceptions, numerically and formally minor." Ultimately, Mládková was supported in her efforts by the then Minister of Culture Pavel Dostál, who permitted the cube, much to the dismay of conservationists and contrary to their decision.
    Mládková opened the museum in the fall of 2003. "The building must cover as much of its operating costs as possible," says the collector, so various accompanying programs are organized within the museum, there is also a bookstore, and Mládková is planning a restaurant. "Only a living museum makes sense, where people often meet, even if they don’t intend to look at the exhibits that day," she adds.
    Mládková has been criticized in the past for purchasing paintings below market value, thereby enriching herself. She rejects this, stating that her purchases helped many Czech artists survive in difficult situations. The purchases were reportedly financed by her husband Jan Mládek’s money and from the sale of a house in Washington.
    The Mládek Foundation also acquired the so-called Werich Villa in Prague's Kampa for a 40-year lease last spring, where the famous actor lived from 1945 until his death in 1980. Mládková plans to turn the 17th-century house into a sort of "cultural stand." The curator aims to live there as well. However, the villa's reconstruction is delayed compared to the original plans (the building was supposed to be open to the public this year), so the villa will have to wait to regain its former glory.
    Mládková is also vying for a garden cottage on Kampa, where she would like to build a children's studio. The patroness has her eyes set on even the entire park in Kampa. She would like to give the green space a new appearance and complement it with a sculpture park featuring works by more than twenty contemporary Czech sculptors. However, officials are reportedly not very inclined toward this idea at the moment.
    Meda Mládková was born on September 8, 1919, in Zákupy in northern Bohemia. In the late 1940s, she moved to Switzerland, where she studied economics; she is also a graduate of L'École du Louvre in France. Since the 1960s, she has lived in the USA.