A new Mucha Museum opened yesterday in the renovated late-Baroque Sylva-Taroucca Palace, known as Savarin, in the centre of Prague. The museum is displaying a number of works by Czech Art-Nouveau artist Alfons Mucha (1860-1939) as well as reproductions, including several paintings from his ‘Slavic Epic’.
There are now two Mucha museums in Prague, not far from each other. The second has been located in the Kaunicky Palace on Panska street since 1998.
The exhibition space in Savarin was built on the first floor in place of a former casino. The reconstruction was completed last summer by the Crestyl development group. Architect Eva Jiricna and her studio AI design participated in the concept of the exhibition.
The museum was opened by Marcus Mucha, great-grandson of Alfons Mucha, grandson of Jiri Mucha and son of John Mucha. Marcus Mucha said at the opening of the museum that events and exhibitions organised around the world by the Mucha Foundation usually attract half a million visitors a year.
Japanese-British curator Tomoko Sato prepared the new exhibition in Savarin from the family’s collections, based on her own research. Original photographs, drawings and posters by Mucha, copies of other works, and objects related to Freemasonry are part of the display. In all, there are 150 exhibits – 90 originals, accompanied by reproductions, Sato said yesterday.
The City of Prague previously considered placing Mucha’s ‘Slavic Epic’, a cycle of 20 giant paintings depicting Slavic mythology and Czech history, in the underground gallery in Savarin, but no agreement has yet been reached yet.
Prague Deputy Mayor Jiri Pospisil (TOP 09) said Prague was still negotiating with the Crestyl group. “They did not react to our comments, which we considered necessary to make the agreement advantageous for Prague as well,” Pospisil told CTK.
Crestyl representative Samuel Johnson said today that his company was holding talks with Prague about the location of the Epic.
Marcus Mucha said he would like to see the Slavic Epic in Savarin on the centenary of the artifacts’ completion in 2028.
The city is in no hurry, according to Pospisil, because the exhibition space for the Slavic Epic in Savarin is not ready, and the painter’s granddaughter Jarmila Mucha Plockova has filed a lawsuit against the plan to place the cycle there. Pospisil said he would like to meet her in the near future.
An alternative to a permanent location in Savarin is the Lapidarium at the Prague Exhibition Grounds, Pospisil added.
After the opening of the new museum, there are two Mucha museums in Prague in dispute over the name. The Mucha Museum on Panska is operated by a company of the same name, whose managing director is entrepreneur Sebastian Pawlowski, according to the register of companies, and whose shareholder is the Swiss company Pawlowski AG.
Since last autumn, the museum has held a new exhibition of works from the original collection of legendary Czech tennis player Ivan Lendl, Lucie Splichalova told CTK on behalf of the museum on Panska.
The Mucha Museum on Panska was able to use the painter’s name on the basis of a contract with the Mucha Trust, which manages the painter’s legacy. But Marcus Mucha said today that the contract, which also referred to trademarks relating to Mucha’s name, was terminated last year.
