Státem vedené soudní procesy závěru padesátých let a soukromé umělecké sběratelství v komunistickém Československu : Jaroslav Borovička a Václav Butta
| Title in English | State-led Trials in the 1950s and Private Art Collecting in the Communist Czechoslovakia : Jaroslav Borovička and Václav Butta |
|---|---|
| Authors | |
| Year of publication | 2017 |
| Type | Chapter of a book |
| MU Faculty or unit | |
| Citation | |
| Description | In the first decade after 1948, private art collecting in the Communist Czechoslovakia experienced a great deal of ideologically motivated oppression. The persecution peaked in 1959 and 1960 by exemplary trials with eminent pre-war art collectors, former representatives of the bourgeoisie. The trial with Jaroslav Borovička, initiated in February 1959, resulted in the most comprehensive contemporary confiscation of a collection comprising of about nine hundred art objects. The collector and trader accused of organised speculation and “causing danger to supplies” defended himself by claiming that “an original painting is not an object of necessity, as required by the facts of the case of speculation he was charged with”, but rather an “artistic creation of the spirit”, which led to an abstract discussion about the character of art in the socialist society and the question of whether “paintings of an artistic value are objects of necessity at the present stage of transforming the society into a socialist society”. Another well documented case, resulting in the confiscation of property, the enrichment of the leading public collections and exemplary punishment, was the trial with the entrepreneur and patron Václav Butta, tried simultaneously with Emanuel Poche, the then director of the Museum of Applied Arts. |