The Colorful World of People, Obecní dům, Czechia 2017

Curator: Richard Drury
Venue: Municipal House, Nám. Republiky 5, Prague 1
Dates: 21 April – 9 June 2017

MUNICIPAL HOUSE and GALERIE GEMA cordially invite you to an exhibition by the acclaimed painter excelling in figurative drawing – Jan Šafránek (1948). Known to audiences as a constant portraitist of human morals and immoralities, he is at the same time a supremely professional painter who creates his works with uncompromising technical thoroughness. Šafránek’s works are characterized by an equal union of artistic vision and technical execution. For the artist, the process of painting is not merely a tool for visualizing an initial idea, but a creative act in a physical, optical, and meditative sense. When he is not painting directly, he resolves the image in his thoughts—he paints, as he says, “in his head.”

The exhibition at the Municipal House will be followed under the same title by an exhibition of further works by Jan Šafránek at Galerie Gema on Máchova Street in Vinohrady. In two halls, 77 oil paintings are on display, and in a separate cabinet 36 drawings and sketchbooks. A special exhibit is presented right at the beginning of the exhibition in the Holar Hall: the large-scale work Altar of the Millennium – Garden Party from 2002. The body of work spans the period from 1968 to the present. On the occasion of the exhibitions, a catalogue of the same title was published.