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Drawing Collection

The drawing collection of the Liberec Regional Gallery contains more than three thousand works. It may be divided into three basic sections – works by German artists painting in the Czech Republic and “Prague Germans” from 1850-1938, selections from drawings made by 20th century Czech artists, and works of artists living in the region. The drawing collection became independent on the graphic art collection in 1983. The essential part is formed by collections transferred from the North Bohemia Museum in Liberec – for instance almost three hundred drawings from the estate of August Brömse, a vast collection from the estate of Erwin Hefter, or drawings by August Pettenkofen from the estate of Heinrich Liebieg. More works of art were transferred also from other institutions; let us mention at least the transfer of the entire Führich family estate from Chrastava Town Museum in 1968 or an important transfer of German drawings from the Ostrov nad Ohří gallery in 1986. And, last but not least, the collection purchased other important works from its own sources. Predominantly in the 1970’s and 1980’s efforts were taken to complement the collection with drawings by the 19th century Czech artists so than now visitors can discover works by Mikoláš Aleš, Alois Bubák, Bedřich Hawranek, Antonín Mánes, Josef Navrátil, August Piepenhagen or František Ženíšek. Furthermore, the Gallery extended its collections by original illustrations of both children and adult books at that time. The works and artists included illustrations for children by Dagmar Berková, Mirko Hanák (Czech nature and forest still-life), Vlastimil Rada and his comic pen drawings, and the famous illustrations Zdeněk Smetana made for fairytales called From the Moss and Fern. At present, the collection is no longer following this direction.

The Gallery’s duties include mapping the works of artists living in the Liberec region. The institution is successful in obtaining works that document the development in retrospective and in acquiring the contemporary regional art for the relevant collection. The overview comprises smaller or larger collections of a number of artists. Apart from the above German artists painting in the Czech Republic we can name Jaro and Alex Beran, Jiří Dostál, Jaroslav Klápště, Dalibor Matouš, Vlasta Matoušová, Jiří Nepasický, František Pavlů, Karel Vik, Viktor Vorlíček or Rostislav Zárybnický.