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Invitation to visit the exhibition about the life of František Foit, Czech sculptor and traveller

The opening of the exhibition "THE LIFE STORY OF FRANTIŠEK VLADIMIR FOIT" will take place on Thursday 8 June 2023 at 1.00 pm at the Slovenian Ethnographic Museum, Metelkova Street,  Ljubljana in the administrative house of the Slovenian Ethnographic Museum. The exhibition will be on view until 16 June 2023. The exhibition will be opened by H.E. Mr. Juraj Chmiel, Ambassador of the Czech Republic in Ljubljana and the author of the concept of the exhibition.
 

The nine-panel exhibition "THE LIFE STORY OF FRANTIŠEK VLADIMÍR FOIT" describes the intriguing life story of the Czech academic sculptor František Foit and his wife Irena. His life story was full of adventures and unexpected twists and turns. The exhibition tries to bring to light the main moments and circumstances of their arrival in Velenje, where the life path of František Foit came to an unfortunate end. Foit, a sculptor and traveller, is one of those Czechs who have made an important mark on Slovenian cultural history.

Foit's enthusiasm for African art, which fascinated him already during his studies, led him to travel to Africa. For the first trip, he received the financial support from Charles University in Prague as the co-founder of Prague´s Hrdlička Museum, which expressed an interest in busts of Africans to complement the museum's collections. František Foit went to Africa for the second time accompanied by his wife Irena. The second trip, which was to last a year, was extended to 23 years due to the social and political changes in Czechoslovakia in 1948. The exhibition presents not only the researched trips but then their subsequent stay in Africa. We wanted to introduce František Foit as an artist, researcher and professor and describe the events of 1968 as a turning point in Czechoslovak history. The year 1968 had also a profound impact on private life of Foit´s couple. After being forbidden to return to Czechoslovakia, they decided to settle in Velenje in 1971. They donated a significant part of the material and documentation they had collected in Africa to the local museum.

The František Foit´s Collection, one of the most important African collections on Slovenian soil, was considered by experts to be one of the largest in Central Europe at the time. It was first put on display in 1971 and nowadays it is part of the permanent exhibition at Velenje Castle.

The idea for the exhibition came from Juraj Chmiel, the ambassador of the Czech Republic in Ljubljana, who is the author, together with Veronika Bělecka and Katica Gale.  Special thanks to Tanja Verboten, curator and director of the Velenje Museum, for providing the necessary materials and photographs. Special thanks also go to Ms. Natalia Polenec, Director of the Slovenian Ethnographic Museum, for the consultation. The translation into Slovenian was done by Ms. Ksenija Mravlja and the design by Ms. Tereza Tejklová.

The exhibition was financed by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Czech Republic.

The invitation can be found in the attachment below.

 

Attachments

Invitation to the exhibition about the life of František... 550 KB PDF (Adobe Acrobat document) May 31, 2023