Ivan Sedlisky Exhibition - 115 paintings

One hundred years since the birth of the painter Ivan Sedliský, his work comes to life in a new exhibition space in the very heart of Prague. About The Ivan Sedlisky Gallery project, created on the initiative of collector Václav Černoch, will present a collection of 115 works by this now-rediscovered author of 20th-century Czechoslovak fine art from June 11, 2026, to January 2028. The permanent exhibition on Michalská Street in Prague 1 will be open from Thursday to Sunday with no mandatory admission fee. It will commemorate the works of Ivan Sedliský as well as the story of a collection born out of a personal relationship, family memory, and respect for both the artist and the public. The project was created on the initiative of the entrepreneur and collector Václav Černoch, who over the years built a unique private collection of works by Ivan Sedliský. Its foundation was laid by a painting purchased by his father, Antonín Černoch, in the late 1960s. For many years, this painting hung in the family living room in Cheb. Following his father's death, this very piece became the impulse for building an extensive collection, which today numbers 115 paintings and will be presented to the public in such a comprehensive form for the first time. "I conceived the exhibition as both a tribute to the painter and a personal family memoir. The paintings in the collection are not for sale. The aim of the project is to bring attention back to Ivan Sedliský, who was recognized abroad during his lifetime but almost disappeared from the broader art-historical debate after his death in 1999," explains collector Václav Černoch. Ivan Sedliský (1926–1999), born Ivan Kopřiva, was a graduate of the Academy of Fine Arts in Prague under Professor Vratislav Nechleba, where he later also served as an assistant. In his work, he originally combined academic painting discipline with modern expressiveness, creating a distinctive style that defied the mainstream trends of his time. He was famous primarily for his female portraits, but alongside these, he also created monumental figurative compositions and large-format cycles dedicated to actors, politicians, painters, cities, or racing car drivers. Sedliský's work stood consciously outside the dominant trends of the second half of the 20th century. At a time when many of his contemporaries were turning to abstraction, informel , or conceptual approaches, he remained faithful to the figure and the human face. His works are characterized by multilayered oil painting, occasionally enriched with a mixture of sand. In addition to painting, Ivan Sedliský was also one of the few artists of his generation to formulate his own artistic theory. He referred to his approach as metarealism, and in his texts, he defended the importance of reality, rationality, portraiture, narrative, and craftsmanship. It was precisely his distinctive artistic and theoretical position that contributed to him remaining difficult to categorize and finding himself outside mainstream institutional narratives after 1989. During his lifetime, Ivan Sedliský exhibited both at home and abroad, including in the Netherlands, Germany, France, Canada, and Denmark, and his works found their way into private collections in Europe and overseas. Today, his work is returning to the spotlight as a remarkable chapter of Czech visual art that deserves a new reading, free from contemporary formulas and institutional filters. The project also includes a monograph titled Ivan (Ivo) Sedliský – A Story from the Living Room , which will be available to the public from June 2026. The publication maps not only the author's work but also the story of the collection on which the exhibition is based. The exhibition will be open to the public from June 11, 2026 – January 2028, from 11:00 AM to 7:00 PM. Address: Michalská 447/7, Old Town, Prague (admission free/voluntary). For more information about the exhibition, please visit www.ivansedliskygallery.com . Read more Toggle Painting