The Tvrdohlaví Group Twenty Years On

The Tvrdohlaví Group-logo

19 - 21 Husova St., Prague 1 – Old Town

Stanislav Diviš, Michal Gabriel, Zdeněk Lhotský, Stefan Milkov, Petr Nikl, Jaroslav Róna, František Skála, Čestmír Suška and group manager Václav Marhoul

The reason for this meeting of former members of the Tvrdohlaví (Stubborn Ones) group, first held late last year at the Gallery of Fine Art in Ostrava and now at the Czech Museum of Fine Arts in Prague, is the 20th anniversary of the group’s founding exhibition. In 1987 nine painters and sculptors presented their work together for the first time at the Community Hall in Prague-Vysočany.

With their official presentation, these students and fresh graduates of the Prague Academy of Fine Arts and the Prague Academy of Arts, Architecture and Design broke the long-standing hegemony of the official Czechoslovak Artists Union and followed on from the earlier dynamic tradition of art groups in this country.

Nowadays, when art groups and associations of varying significance emerge and disappear without any great difficulty or publicity, it is worth mentioning that it isn’t as long ago as it seems that, in the repressive years of the 1970s and ’80s, the decision by young artists to present themselves as a group at a joint show was immediately seen as an undesirable political statement.

Despite the adverse social climate of the day, the Tvrdohlaví group members managed to establish themselves as leading artistic figures. They met, discussed their work and installed their exhibitions together, trying to react to international developments in art. From the 1990s the group exhibited jointly for a while, though in the meantime its individual members staged solo exhibitions, became acknowledged artists and teachers at art colleges, took part in major projects in other countries, created work for public spaces and had their work acquired by prestigious public and private collections.

The exhibition at the Czech Museum of Fine Arts (which, in contrast to Ostrava, does not feature the work of Jiří David who chose not to participate) is neither a group show nor an attempt at a retrospective.

It brings together contemporary work by different artistic personalities who have a shared past in the joint activity of the group. Several former Tvrdohlaví members have had solo exhibitions at the Czech Museum of Fine Arts, including Čestmír Suška and, this summer, Zdeněk Lhoták alongside Tvrdohlaví artists involved with his glass studio at Pelechov – Čestmír Suška, Jaroslav Róna, Stefan Milkov and Michal Gabriel.

The exhibition ‘The Tvrdohlaví Group 20 Years On’ features a diverse programme of accompanying events, including meetings with individual artists as well as programmes for families and schools.