THE ART NEWSPAPER Number 284, November 2016 5
News Europe
AN IMPORTANT CASED PAIR OF INDIAN FLINTLOCK PISTOLS WITH
SILVER BARRELS AND LOCKPLATES, SIGNED ‘L. COL. CLAUDE MARTIN,
LUCKNOW ARSENAL,’ CIRCA 1785 AND PRESENTED IN 1786 BY MARTIN
TO LIEUTENANT COLONEL ALEXANDER ROSS38/39 Duke Street, St James’s, London SW1Y 6DF
T: +44 (0)20 7839 5666 | E: gallery@peterner.com | http://www.peterner.com20TH CENTURY
Prague. A major legal battle looms over
Alphonse Mucha’s monumental Slav
Epic. The gigantic canvas cycle, which
took the Czech-born Art Nouveau
pioneer 18 years to complete, is due
to go on a controversial tour to Asia,
which has alarmed Mucha’s descend-
ants and some conservators.
The Slav Epic depicts key events in
the history of the Slavic people through
20 large paintings—some more than
eight-metres tall. It is a rare work on
canvas by Mucha (1860-1939) who is best
known for his advertising posters and
designs that became synonymous with
Belle Epoque Paris. Mucha, along with
Charles Crane, the US philanthropist
who funded the work, presented the
Slav Epic as a gift to the city of Prague in
1928, the tenth anniversary of Czechoslo-
vakia’s independence. But the donationcame with the condition that the city
build a space for the cycle to be exhib-
ited permanently. Almost 100 years on, a
gallery has yet to be constructed.
Now, the city of Prague wants to send
the Slav Epic to museums in Asia for a
two-year tour, which could be extended
to South Korea and the US—the first
time all 20 works will be displayed
together outside the Czech Republic.
To prevent them from leaving the
country, John Mucha, the artist’s grand-
son and the president of the Mucha
Foundation, filed a lawsuit against the
city of Prague on 11 April. He argues that
Prague, having failed to build the gallery,
never became the full owner of the Slav
Epic, and that the works should there-
fore be returned to Mucha’s heirs. The
first court hearing is expected to take
place towards the end of the year. As
we went to press the Czech Republic’s
ministry of culture had yet to issue an
export permit for the Slav Epic, which is
registered as a national treasure.
“Alphonse was a patriot and wanted
the work to be enjoyed in perpetuity by
MUCHA: © HERCULES MILAS/ALAMY. BRANCUSI: © DANIEL MIHAILESCU/AFP/GETTY IMAGESthe Czech people,” John Mucha says. “To
“Any touring risks
permanently
damaging the art”Bucharest. Few works by the Romanian
sculptor Constantin Brancusi, who moved
to France permanently at the age of 28, are
held in his home country. So the Romanian
government jumped at the chance to ac-
quire his limestone sculpture The Wisdom
of the Earth (1907), which depicts a seated
female nude.
The work was put up for sale for €11m
by the heirs of Gheorghe Romascu, a
friend of Brancusi, who bought it from the
artist in 1911. (The sculpture was seized bythe Communist government in 1957 and
returned to Romascu’s heirs in 2012 after
a long legal battle.) But the government
will have to pay double the €5m it initially
pledged towards the acquisition after
a €6m public fundraising campaign it
launched in May, with the catchphrase
“Brancusi is mine”, raised just over €1m by
its September deadline.
On 12 October, the government
announced that it has passed an emergency
ordinance to purchase the sculpture. Aspokesman had said that, although a inan-
cial mechanism had yet to be determined,
government funds would be made available
to cover the fundraising gap and that the
€11m would be on hand by the end of
November deadline.
According to Corina Şuteu, Romania’s
minister of culture, the statue will travel
around the country but will irst go on
display at the National Museum of Art of
Romania in Bucharest.
Victoria Stapley-BrownMucha heir sues Prague
to halt Asian tour of Slav Epic
Artist’s grandson fears trip to Japan and China could harm the 20 monumental paintings
Alphonse Mucha painted the cycle over
18 yearsThe Communist government seized The
Wisdom of the Earth (1907) in 1957Romanian government will buy Brancusi work despite failed fundraising attempt
that end, he gave it to the city of Prague
on condition that it build a pavilion in
which it could be exhibited to the public.
But the city has not fulfilled that condi-
tion.” Since 2010 the Slav Epic has been
on display at Veletrzní Palác, a former
venue for industrial fairs in Prague,
which “some leading conservators con-
sider unsuitable to works of this type and
magnitude”, according to Mucha.International tour
It was controversially moved there from
Moravský Krumlov in the southern
Moravian region, where it had been on
display for 50 years. The Mucha family
also has emotional objections to the
Veletrzní Palác: during the Second World
War, the venue was a holding area forJews—including members of Mucha’s
family—before they were deported to
concentration camps.
The city’s lease on Veletrzní Palác
will run out in December, giving the
museum a month to dismantle the
exhibition before sending it abroad. The
tour is scheduled to begin in Japan at the
National Art Center in Tokyo (8 March-
June 2017), before travelling to China,
where the works will be shown at the
Nanjing Museum (14 July-8 October), the
Guangdong Museum (November-Janu-
ary 2018) and the Hunan Provincial
Museum in Changsha (February-May
2018). Venues in South Korea and the US
are being negotiated.
“The canvases are huge and are very
sensitive as they are oil and temperaon canvas,” John Mucha says. “As such,
any touring risks permanently damag-
ing the art—particularly as some of the
Chinese museums at which the Epic will
be exhibited have never hosted exhibi-
tions of Western paintings of such size
and technical complexity before, and are
unlikely to have the required conserva-
tion expertise to handle such works.”
Conservators have also criticised the
plans. “The more Mucha is handled,
the less Mucha there is,” says Zuzana
Poláková, a restorer of paintings at the
Slovak Academy of Sciences, in a state-
ment. “Works from Mucha’s Epic have
been exhibited abroad several times inthe past and they have always needed
restoration. Damage is caused by the
repeated rolling and unrolling of the
canvases and changes in climate.” The
Association for the Conservation and
Development of Cultural Heritage in the
Czech Republic, which has appealed to
the country’s ministry of culture to stop
the tour, has also pointed out that after
an investigation in 1936 a commission
appointed by Prague city council recom-
mended that the Epic never be allowed
to travel abroad again.No permanent home
The head of Prague City Gallery, which
cares for the Slav Epic and is organising
the exhibitions, says that the tour poses
little risk to the works. “If these venues
can display ancient art, Renaissance
paintings, classic Modern art and other
fragile works of art from several Euro-
pean destinations by artists such as Da
Vinci, Raphael, Titian, Lorenzo Lotto,
Rodin, Picasso, Léger and Dubuffet,
they will apply the same care in showing
works by Mucha—even if they are mon-
umental,” says Magdalena Juríková,
the gallery’s director, adding that the
museum is working towards ensuring
adequate conditions of transport and
display at the exhibiting venues.
Juríková says that “two world
wars and a totalitarian regime” have
impeded the search for an appropri-
ate space for the Slav Epic. (When the
Nazis entered Prague in 1939, the works
were rolled up and hidden until they
were re-exhibited in 1963.) “The present
political body is paying attention to this
subject. I have been in my seat [as the
director of the Prague City Gallery] for
three-and-a-half years and have tried to
solve [the issue of ] the future display of
the Slav Epic continuously throughout
this period,” Juríková says.
Nonetheless, the international tour
has forced his hand, John Mucha says.
“If I didn’t do anything and the Epic
was destroyed or it never found a space,
I would be kicking myself until I was
dead. If I lose, at least I can sleep peace-
fully because I will have done everything
possible to fulfil the wishes of my grand-
father and to protect the Slav Epic.”
Julia Michalska[email protected]
Tel + 44 (0) 20 7242 7624
http://www.koopmanrareart.comkoopman rare art
16 November 2016 – 17 January 2017
11 ARTISTS FROM L.A.
CURATED BY GAJIN FUJITA