On the occasion of the 2024 Ice Hockey World Championship, the National Gallery presents an exhibition that opens up the theme of skating and hockey in visual art. Skating on frozen canals, lakes, and rivers was popular in 17th- and 18th-century Holland, and it soon spread to the Czech lands and Prague and became a common winter pastime across social classe

By the beginning of the 20th century, people had started to play ice hockey, the first ice rinks were being built, and the sport was becoming a part of the national identity. Meanwhile, it found its way into art and, for some creators, provided a free domain for artistic experimentation. The exhibition features a number of interesting works from private and institutional collections, as well as works by contemporary artists, some of which were created specifically for the occasion. It looks at a topic that has not yet been presented or examined in such a comprehensive way and invites the general public to explore how this sport, so fundamental for the Czechs, is reflected in art. The exhibition is accompanied by a Czech and English catalogue.

The exhibition will feature approximately 100 works of art using various techniques. There will be paintings by old masters such as Pieter Brueghel the Younger and Norbert Grund, as well as by the most prominent figures of 19th-century Czech art ⁠–⁠ August Bedřich Piepenhagen, Karel Purkyně, and Antonín Barvitius. Depictions of ice-skating rinks in Prague and beyond by T. F. Šimon, Otakar Nejedlý, and Karel Holan will also be on display. Marcel Niederle’s drawings will take the audience into the world of the first big hockey matches and victories, while photographs will give them a glimpse of the construction of the first ice rink on Štvanice island in Prague and many important hockey moments. In addition to classical portrayals of the theme in paintings and drawings, experimental artistic approaches by Jiří Kolář, Vojtěch Tittelbach, and Theodor Rotrekel will also be presented. The 1990s, apart from being marked by the phenomenal Czech triumph in Nagano, opened up new possibilities in art. As a result, hockey subjects were treated with critical distance and irony, as in the works of Krištof Kintera, Jiří Surůvka, and Ondřej Kohout. The exhibition concludes with a section dedicated to nine contemporary artists who have created new works relating to hockey on the occasion of this year’s championship, including Jakub Špaňhel, Alena Kotzmannová, Jan Vytiska, Paulina Skavová, and Karel Štědrý.

National Gallery Prague - Kinský Palace