Josef Šíma Known and Unknown

GASK has secured the long-term loan of two paintings by Josef Šíma, a major figure of European Modernism, that have never been shown to the public before. Dating from Šíma’s late period, the pictures are an expression of the aesthetics of the group Le Grand Jeu with which Šíma was involved during the 1920s and have been described as outstanding examples of Šíma’s mythic-poetical geometric imagination. He painted these pictures in the 1960s when he was working on the stained-glass windows for the Church of St Jacques in Reims.

The exhibition will acquaint viewers with the fate of the loaned works and will also show the artist’s well-known drawings and hand-coloured prints from the 1920s and ’30s from GASK’s collection.