Death feels like falling asleep

When Karel Srp was relieved as director of the City Gallery of Prague, he was less interested in the reasons for his dismissal than in completing a collection of the complete works of Jindřich Štyrský, the leading figure of the Czechoslovak avant-garde. The plan worked out well ― over the spring, Štyrský's paintings arrived in Prague from private collections in Switzerland, France, Belgium, Israel and the United States.

The first retrospective exhibition of works by Štyrský (1899–1942), opened in early summer, is a dream come true for Srp. He organised the show with his colleague Lenka Bydžovská as a follow-up to a retrospective seven years ago of the female painter Toyen. The exhibition of Štyrský's artistic partner at Old Town's House of the Stone Bell attracted a record 67,000 visitors. Expecting the same interest in Štyrský, the gallery stays open even on Mondays.

Toyen belonged to a small group of artists who realised shortly after the war that the Communists would soon scuttle independent culture. In 1947 she left for Paris, taking works her friend Štyrský had left with her. When she died, these were sold in auctions. That's why Štyrský's work is spread around the world. That all the pieces have been brought together makes the current exhibition unique. Moreover, it is accompanied by an anthology of Štyrský's writings and a very special monograph, possibly the painter's…