The Day of Czech Culture was opened by a press conference hosted by the Ikon Gallery, a renowned gallery of modern art. The conference was led by the curators of the exhibition – Johnathan Watkins, Director of the gallery and Miroslav Ambroz, the art historian. After the conference Pavel Brázda’s spouse, Mrs. Věra Nováková, took over from the Czech vice-minister of Culture, Mrs. Kateřina Kalistová, the Artis Bohemiae Amicis medal granted to Pavel Brázda for his lifelong contribution to the promotion of Czech culture. A reception at the Library of Birmingham took place afterwards, with a performance by the Belfiato Quintet, followed by the official opening of the exhibition named “Pavel Brázda is Here!”.

More photos from the Day of Czech culture in Birmingham on 1 June 2017 by Ms. Jolly Thompson are available on this link: https://jollythompson.dphoto.com/#/album/6fafat

On Saturday 3 June 2017, the Czech Ambassador, Libor Sečka, hosted a Garden party for Friends of Art at his London´s residence, with the participation of Mrs. Věra Nováková and other distinguished guests - Ambassadors, Czech and British artists, journalists etc.

All photos from the Garden party on 3 June by Ms. Jolly Thompson are available on this link: https://jollythompson.dphoto.com/#/album/f4330h

A sample of other Pavel Brázda’s paintings, which are part of the exhibition, can be found in this attachment (PDF, 2 MB).

The article "Out of dystopia" about Pavel Brázda´s life and work in The Financial Times by Susan Moore is available here (PDF, 2 MB)

Ambassador Libor Sečka, who admires and enjoys Pavel Brázda’s work, wrote a very interesting article about the painter. You can read it in the following attachment (PDF, 71 KB)

The press release is available in this document (PDF, 852 KB)

A video trailer for the exhibition is possible to view on this link: https://youtu.be/Gb0Xly0oGJI

 

A brief curriculum vitae of the artist

Pavel Brázda was born on 21 August 1926 in Brno. Here, in 1943, he founded his style called “hominism” – art about people and for the people. At the beginning of 1949, he was expelled from his studies at the Academy of Fine Arts for political reasons and he was sent to work as an apprentice house painter. Between 1950 and 1952, he studied and graduated from the Higher Professional School of Applied Art in Prague and was allowed to make a living as decorative artists, working in the area of applied arts and crafts. For 10 years starting with 1977, Brázda worked as a stoker in a coal boiler room, he retired in 1997*. He didn’t begin exhibiting his art as a regular, acknowledged artist until the 1990’s.

In 1992, Pavel Brázda became the first visual artist to receive the Revolver Revue Prize. Exhibitions in Prague galleries, in the Czech Republic and abroad followed and at the end of the nineties, he participated in group shows at the National Gallery. A selection of Brázda’s paintings has been part of the permanent exhibition of Czech modern art at the National Gallery (the Veletržní Palace) since 2000. There, a half-year long retrospective exhibition of Brázda’s art was organized in 2006–2007. Several television and radio documentaries have been made about Brázda’s life and art. In 2007, he received the “Personality of the Year” Art Historians’ Prize. Between 2009 and 2011, excerpts from his “Human Comedy” were exhibited every year, mostly in the **5th Floor Gallery and the Litera Gallery in Prague. In 2012 – 2013, a solo show of his art from the years 1949 to 2012 was organized in the Moscow Proun Gallery.