Josef Lada (1887-1957)

20 November 2008 - 25 January 2009
Museum of Modern Art | Gallery

The simple title of the exhibition "Josef Lada" was deliberately chosen as the brand work, which in the best sense of the word became popular. We know it from childrens books and illustrations of Haseks immortal Schweik, cartoons, calendars, posters and postcards, but we know it vicariously, not originals, but reproductions and so, although the art of Josef Lada (1887-1957) is one of the most famous and popular, we have only rarely has the chance to see his true form. Moreover, it is the first ever exhibition Ladova in Olomouc.

This fact influenced the selection of paintings and drawings. The curators of this exhibition represent Ladu primarily as a painter and indeed as the original creator, who to his inimitable and truly modern manuscript came after many years, through complex and full of pitfalls that lurked in eighteen year old cartoonist Vilímkových comic magazines.

He started as a cartoonist, whose charmed from childhood work by M. Aleš, later worked as a writer and cartoonist cartoons and ended as a painter "Czech myth" idylls and winter fairy tales on the one hand, but also the village dances and pranic and indeed mysterious and somewhat frightening scenes on the other. Lada is certainly painter earth and earthly beauty, rustic but also a metaphysical, as he was painting landscapes under starry skies and no people. The viewer realizes that this work is a smallish dimensions hidden drama and its not as simple as it seems.

Selection focused on truly classical works and characteristic, but also on the work of the little-known and beginner. Importantly, the exhibition are within the topics presented works that have not been exposed for fifty years, and several works that have not been exposed to all.

The exhibition will also feature Ladu as the author and illustrator of funny drawings of many books for children. The artist often formed just for the kids and seeing them in the best critics and connoisseurs of his work. The exhibition of approximately two hundred paintings and drawings bring in a representative selection certainly the best of Ladova known and unknown works.