Josef Kolář: Ostrava in the Day and Ostrava at Night

Name: Ostrava in the Day and Ostrava at Night

Author: Josef Kolář

Dating: 1960–1961

Location: in the former smoking room of the Vesmír cinema

Execution: a decorative painting of two walls using latex secco-fresco technique, 8 m²in size

OSTRAVA INVISIBLE

The mural in the former smoking room of the Vesmír cinema in Moravian Ostrava is included among the invisible works of art in the University collection. There were actually two paintings – one representing the stylized image of Ostrava in the daylight, the other (on the opposite wall) showing the city at night. The painter Josef Kolář (1913–2004) created it between 1960 and 1961 when the cinema was undergoing a reconstruction designed by the Brno architect Lubor Lacina (1920–1988). The work was thus not created directly for the VŠB – Technical University of Ostrava, which has owned the Vesmír cinema only since 2003, although the silhouette of an industrial city full of mine hoist frames, ironworks, and slag heaps could suggest it. There is only one known (and low-quality) black-and-white photograph that serves to infer the appearance of the painting, and it only reveals the theme (Ostrava in the Day) and the technique characterized by a summary stylization with an imaginative approach and a certain level of decorativism.

Whether the murals are still hidden under some newer layers is uncertain. As early as in 1966, the author himself drew attention to a poor state of art decoration and decided to adjust it to fit the functions of the room. What he meant by it, and whether he did so or not, we do not know. The future fate of these murals, art value of which was appreciated in 1962 even by an art historian Petr Holý, is unknown. It is not even clear now which of the cinema rooms actually served as the smoking room. Finding out more information about the form and fate of the work will be the subject of research in the future.

Josef Kolář

(1913–2004)

Work: Ostrava in the Day and Ostrava at Night

Shortly before the outbreak of the war, Josef Kolář attended for one year Special Graphic Courses under the Academy of Fine Arts in Prague led by František Šimon Tavík. After the war, he continued studying painting under Jakub Obrovský, and again graphic design under Vladimír Silovský. In the post-war era, he went travelling and visited many European and Middle Eastern countries. Josef Kolář lived and worked alternately in Prague, Ostrava, and Havířov. His painting expression ranged from stylized landscaping through summarization and decorativism to imaginative abstraction. He is an author of several mosaics (Still-life in a self-service shop in Rychvald (1973), Geological Layers at the Krestova Primary School in Ostrava-Hrabůvka (1975), and Games at the Orlová-Lutyně Kindergarten (1976)), as well as drawings in stone for the Praha restaurant in Karviná (1964, together with Drahoslav Beran and Miroslav Čtvrtník) and a decorative curtain for Pavilion C at the Ostrava Exhibition Grounds (1964). He was a member of the Association of Fine Artists called Aleš, the Union of Czech Fine Artists, and the Informal Association of Karviná Region Artists called Sušská paleta.