The nineteenth work was selected by artist Michal Cihlář.

Emil Filla is not an artist whose work I particularly seek out, but this painting has left an indelible mark on my memory. The woman, evidently a widow, has two faces: her young face is oval and smooth, making you want to caress it, while her current face is hostile, prickly, acerbic. The dog is a perfect reincarnation of her husband, and his grumpy, lethargic expression tells me that he’s not going to escape from his wife’s grasp any time soon. I have no idea where the leash has gone, but the woman has something around her waist… Strong emotions are also evoked by the colour combination in the hard-boiled-egg spread (which I don’t eat) – pig-like pink and a dense greenish-blue that strongly reminds me of the enamel paint on the toilet walls at my primary school… (Michal Cihlář)

The series of single-work exhibitions will continue until the completion of the Gallery’s new extension, designed by the architect Josef Pleskot, which will be evocatively named The White Shadow. The exhibitions aim to raise public awareness of the Gallery’s extensive collections, which currently cannot be exhibited in their entirety due to a lack of space. The project will also present our collection as a living organism, constantly growing and evolving.

Besides raising awareness of the Gallery’s collections, these single-work exhibitions will also play a key role in generating the visual style of the Gallery’s promotional materials. Based on the work currently displayed, the graphic design team will create a colour scheme that will feature on quarterly or monthly programmes, leaflets and other materials.

The curators of the single-work exhibitions will change like the works themselves. Instead of art historians, the curators will be drawn from a wide range of other creative professions – artists themselves, writers, actors and directors, architects, scientists and scholars, musicians, restorers, and more. Their artistic sensitivity and inventive approach will make them ideal ‘guest curators’ for this series. Each curator will prepare a talk, a reading or a different type of presentation to explain why they have chosen their particular work. The curators have a completely free choice – they can select works from any period and in any medium, so the exhibitions will feature a huge variety, ranging from 19th-century painting and drawing to contemporary photography.

Robert V. Novák and Zuzana Burgrová