'Ivan Mrkvička - The Bulgarian Czech' presented in Prague
At the beginning of November 2016, an exhibition will be opened in the gallery of the Institute with unpublished and little-known paintings, valuable papers and photographs of the great artist.
The event is under the auspices of Minister of Culture Vezhdi Rashidov and is organized by the Embassy of the Republic of Bulgaria in the Czech Republic, the Bulgarian Cultural Institute, the Sofia City Art Gallery and the National Academy of Arts in partnership with the Prague National Gallery, the West Bohemian Gallery in Plzeň, the Regional Museum of History - Sofia, and the Archives State Agency. The exhibition is being done with the support of the "Communication Strategy of the Republic of Bulgaria for the European Union" programme.
The name of Ivan Mrkvička is related both to the beginning of the academic art education in post-liberation Bulgaria and to the huge number of significant works that the artist created during his nearly 40-year stay in Bulgaria.
His emblematic works have for decades adorned the buildings of Bulgaria's highest state institutions, museums, galleries. To this day he is still known and revered among the general public in Bulgaria and less known in his native Czech Republic.
With the project about Ivan Mrkvička, the team of the Czech Cultural Institute in Prague aims precisely to highlight his name to the Czech audience and to enrich the information about the last years of his life.
At the very beginning of its research, the team from the Institute came across an album about Professor Mrkvička, done by his friends in Prague on the occasion of his 80th anniversary. The pages reveal many interesting facts and valuable information.
In the Western Bohemian Gallery in Pilsen and in the Prague National Gallery, after a thorough study, the specialists found that their collections included paintings, graphics and drawings of Mrkvička. Eleven of his works in the repository of the National Gallery were prepared for exhibition.
All these works by Ivan Mrkvička, as well as his works from the Sofia City Art Gallery collection, will be made available to the general public in November in Prague.
In addition to this valuable collection of items, visitors to the gallery of the Bulgarian Cultural Institute will see photographs, documents and materials about Ivan Mrkvička from the State Archives - Sofia and the Regional Museum of History in Sofia, as well as from his personal archive.
A special catalogue is accompanying the exhibition. The publication is trilingual (Bulgarian, Czech and English). It views the great artist through the prism of the European dimension of his personality and creativity.