1939–2021: The End of Black and White – National Gallery Prague Permanent Exhibition

The permanent collection exhibition "1939–2021: The End of Black and White" at the National Gallery Prague's Veletržní Palace traces Czech art from the declaration of the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia through to the present day. The title is not a period designation but a curatorial motto summarizing the approach: the material of a painful epoch is not judged ideologically in advance. The fundamental polarities of contemporary art—official and unofficial, abstract and figurative, formal and socially engaged—mutually conditioned each other's existence, yet almost never existed as pure black and white extremes. The exhibition presents art as testimony to its time: the result of not only purely artistic but also social, political, and economic forces. Chronological arrangement allows visitors to trace how rapidly the concept of artistic quality transformed, even within individual artists' work. The exhibition comprises 323 artworks by 266 artists, drawn exclusively from the National Gallery Prague's collections—without any external loans. Featured artists include Josef Šíma, Toyen, Jan Zrzavý, Pavel Brázda, Ladislav Sutnar, Hugo Demartini, Zdeněk Sýkora, Eva Kmentová, František Skála, Kateřina Šedá, Kamil Lhoták, and Karel Nepraš. Works by foreign artists with connections to Czech context are also present—for example, Oskar Kokoschka's "Red Egg" as a metaphor for the Munich Agreement, or Pablo Picasso's "Abduction of Sabine Women," which the gallery received as a symbol of support in 1968. The curatorial team (Michal Novotný, Eva Skopalová, Adéla Janíčková, Adriana Šmejkalová) systematically examined the acquisition history—each work is labeled with the year of acquisition and method of acquisition. The exhibition design is by Dominik Lang and Jan Brož. The exhibition is open Tuesday–Sunday 10:00–18:00, and on the first Wednesday of each month 10:00–20:00.