Guided tour of the Václav Špála – Flowers exhibition

The exhibition at the Kampa Museum presents Václav Špála as an exceptionally focused and systematic painter for whom floral still lifes became a lifelong theme and a space for deep painterly exploration. Bouquets constitute the most numerous part of his work and, at the same time, one of his least stereotypical positions – despite repeated motifs, Špála constantly sought new color, compositional, and expressive possibilities. The exhibition shows flowers not only as bearers of sensual beauty, but also as a place where the painter's experience, strict composition, and spontaneous painterly gesture meet. Special attention is paid to the way Špála composed his still lifes in front of his own landscape paintings, creating a multi-layered dialogue of images within an image. A guided tour will introduce Špála's working process, his relationship to repetition and transformation of the same motif, and contemporary critical reactions. The exhibition thus offers the opportunity to view Špála's bouquets not only as iconic works of Czech modernism, but also as a surprisingly topical painterly statement.

The guided tour led by the curator Jan Skřivánek will be held in English.