Wannieck Gallery in Brno will display a unique collection of Komerční banka’s pictures

Press release

5/22/2012
8:00 AM

Wannieck Gallery, a modern art gallery in Brno, will display a selection of works of art from Komerční banka’s unique collections. Visitors will have an opportunity to see approximately 100 paintings, drawings and other works from 22  May to mid-September 2012.

Komerční banka has more than 3,500 works of art in its art collection. For the exhibition in Wannieck Gallery have been selected representative works from the 1970s to 1990s. Visitors can look forward to, for example, the works of highly acclaimed authors such as Karel Malicha, Jiří Sopek, Michael Rittstein, Ivan Ouhel, Jan Merta, Vladimír Kokolia and Antonín Střížek. But this is not all, naturally. Lovers of graphics will find works of Naděžda Plíšková, Alena Kučerová and Zdeněk Sýkora, froissages of Ladislav Novák, and etchings of Lubomír Přibyl. And fans of the art of the 1990s? Petr Pastrňák’s and Petr Písařík’s, and also other artists’ pictures, have been prepared for them. The collection on display therefore offers, in a way, a unique view of the development of Czech painting of the 1970s to 1990s.

“Part of the exhibition is not only the works of art that Komerční banka’s clients can see in our branches but also those kept in KB’s depositories, which are not normally visible. I therefore believe that the exhibition will be attractive for both experts and the general public,” said Henri Bonnet, Komerční banka Chairman and CEO.

Komerční banka started a systematic development of its collection as early as 1995. That year saw the establishment of the Commission for Works of Art and Their Use and a group of experts from the bank and external consultants began to acquire pictures, mainly those from the 1970s to 1990s.

“Komerční banka judiciously decided to invest in living artists’ works, which at that time were overshadowed by the inter-war avant-garde works appearing on the local art market, only starting up at that time, because of the then running property restitutions. Over the years that followed, a collection of contemporary art, which in terms of its quality and size surpasses similar projects in the Czech Republic, has been developed,” comments Magdalena Juříková, the expert guarantor and secretary of  the Commission for Works of Art and Their Use at Komerční banka between 1994-1997, on the origins of the collection.

Komerční banka shares its interest in art, and financial support for art, with its parent group Société Générale. Its collection, which today includes some 300 major original works and 700 lithographs, is extensively documented and accessible in a virtual gallery on the  internet.