curator
Magdalena Juříková & team of curators 

Prague City Gallery restored its acquisition activity five years ago after a prolonged pause. We began in a modest way – by purchasing previously postponed acquisitions from a long-term exhibition aptly entitled “After the Velvet”. It was the first attempt at supplementing at least one segment of our rather non-homogeneous and altogether arbitrarily developed collection which was built thanks to the artists’ donations to the City of Prague as early as during the last decades of the 19th century; however, programmatic although, simultaneously, tendentious acquisitions came only with the official establishment of the institution in 1963. In the 1980s, Gallery could boast an array of interesting gains from the then-revealing exhibitions focusing on the islands in the historiography of the local artistic scene.

The 1990s were more of an era of occasional donations from the younger generation of artists, and the situation seemed almost hopeless due to the rivaling and increasingly active private collectors who benefited from the rising market and auctions. The public-service galleries found themselves on the margin, having no chance to step in the competition for the outstanding works newly available due to the restitutions.

Today, Prague City Gallery enjoys understanding from the side of its founder, thus having the opportunity to acquire, for already the fifth time, works from the artists it had been following on a long-term basis and whose exhibitions it had organized. This bond is not only significant from the point of the Gallery’s acquisition program, but also from the point of effectively managing the funds allocated by the Prague municipal government specifically for this purpose. The given system draws the Gallery nearer to a more distinctively profiled collection that would correspond with the pursued subjects outlined in its exhibition program and at the same time capitalize on its relations with the particular artistic figures who, reciprocally, adapt their prices to the possibilities of our budget. Our exhibition will present a selection of their works originating from the past four years and will provide an insight to the structure of our collections which are thus gradually becoming self-contained and head towards the future permanent exhibition.

Prague City Gallery - Municipal Library, 2nd floor