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The museum of Northern Bohemia
A street in Liberec running from the town center to the foothills of the Jizera Mountains boasts a history spanning more than century. The grand buildings lining this street indicate that it is not an ordinary thoroughfare but a promenade, which from the late 1800s onwards was used for social purposes rather than transportation. It was in this area that many  of the town's facilities designed for social functions, entertainment and recreation - as well as education - were built. The street, now called Masarykova, is dominated by a tower more likely to be seen on late Renaissance buildings than turn-of-the-century structures, it is indeed a replica of the tower of the old Liberec Town Hall built between 1599 and 1603, forced to cede to alternations made to Dr. E. Beneš Square in 1893. This nostalgia for times past was incorporated further into a design of a complex of buildings intended to house an institution devoted to the past - a museum.

This grand building was opened to the public in 1898, the golden anniversary year of the accession of Emperor Franz Josef I. to the Habsburg throne, and the silver anniversary year of the foundation of the Industrial Museum of Northern Bohemia, one of the oldest and most prestigious museums of art and industry in the Lands of the Czech Crown. The construction of the building stood as a symbol of the museum's golden era. Designed to comply with its planned function by the architect Friedrich Ohmann in 1896, the museum was erected in the subsequent two years on plans altered by the Berlin architect Hans Grisebach, thus expanding the number of architectural monuments built in the Art Nouveau and historicist periods. Distinguishing themselves through their grand exteriors and incredible feeling for utility, they contributed to changing the town into a focal point of Northern Bohemia, equipped with everything necessary for comfortable life. The very existence of the (Industrial) Museum of Northern Bohemia became the embodiment and convincing proof of the town's breathtaking development. The steep upsurge in industrial production in the first half of the 1800s - making Liberec the birthplace of Industrial Revolution in Bohemia and at the same time transforming it from a feudal tributary town into one of the major industrial centers in the Cisleithan Regions - was reflected (albeit indirectly) in cultural life as well. The foundation of a museum in 1873 was motivated by an effort on the part of local businessmen to provide greater impetus to industrial production, among other things in the form of displays of product samples past and present. In the subsequent decade this institution - founded by the local businessmen's association - succeeded in transforming itself into an ambitious establishment seeking inspiration for its activities in leading European museums of art and industry, the ranks of which it managed to join in the 1880s and the 1890s, thanks to a lightning increase in the amount of its collections and its ceaseless activity in disseminating culture. The museum conceived an ambitious program of activities for itself, covering practically all branches of art and industry. However, where local crafts and industrial traditions were concerned, pride of place in its collections was given to textile and glass production. As a result, the museum boasts one of the largest collections of textiles in the Czech Republic, and the historical and contemporary wall tapestries on display there are unrivalled elsewhere in the country. The last section of the present exhibition of applied art at the Museum of Northern Bohemia presents the works of local artists - Czech glass sculpture and hanging tapestries created in the past three or four decades. The museum exhibition charting applied art from antiquity to the mid-1900s provides a much deeper insight into the individual styles and stages of material culture in Europe both in terms of the material used and the territories involved. Visitors can thus examine exquisite examples of Renaissance glass from Venice, Baroque goblets, created by glassworks in Central Europe, Czech glass from the Baroque to Art Nouveau, Renaissance ceramics produced in Italy and Germany, 18th-century porcelain, gold jeweler, minor objects fashioned from precious metals for use at the table, and pewter objects created in styles, ranging from Renaissance to Empire. In addition, the museum exhibits furniture, watches, old prints, objects fashioned from non-ferrous metals, and other examples of European arts and crafts. The opening of a new building in the late 19th century allowed the museum to introduce the public ti its collection devoted to local history. In the post-war period the natural science museum, originally an independent entity, was incorporated into the museum. The two aforementioned collections are on display in separate departments located on the museum's ground floor, a venue for large exhibitions. In the past such undertakings have met with great success, they include an exhibition of Art Nouveau art, watches and Meissen porcelain staged in the 1960s and a number of exhibitions organized after the museum's re-opening in 1988. The museum's small exhibition hall, located in its western wing, serves smaller exhibitions. During the summer months visitors undoubtedly appreciate the establishment's most romantic section-the so-called "court of paradise". The museum library, one of its most important departments, boasts several tens of thousands of titles devoted to art, collected since its opening.

Jan Mohr

A destination for Art lovers
The District Art Gallery in Liberec is considered one of the five largest and most important state-owned institutions of its kind in the Czech Republic in terms of both the number of its collections and their value. Its origins are linked to the foundation of Liberec Museum in 1873. Credit for the gallery's foundation is due to Rudolf Müller, a professor at the Liberec realschule (technical secondary school), who succeeded in pushing through his idea of the newly founded museum's collecting paintings and drawings by artists from the Liberec region, in addition to glass, textile and porcelain. Established at the same time as the museum itself, the art department was to expand its collections considerably in subsequent years. Nonetheless, it was not until 1904 that the quality of the collected works increased dramatically, thanks to generosity of the Liberec industrialist Heinrich Liebieg, who bequeathed his fabulous collection to his native town.

An affluent and refined collector and patron of the arts, Liebieg amassed a number of paintings by 19th-century German and Austrian artists, mostly his contemporaries. In choosing and purchasing these works of art he was assisted by the Viennese painter Eduard Charlemont, who had been living in Paris for a long time. Familiar with the Parisian artistic ambience, Charlemont was able to arrange for his art-loving friend the purchase of a number of French landscapes (predominantly the works of members of the so-called Barbizon School) and, most importantly, seventeen paintings by Eugene Boudin, the largest collection of works by this predecessor and friend of the impressionists ever compiled outside France. Together with his collection, Heinrich Liebieg granted the museum a sum of 600,000 crowns to be spent on the care of art works and future purchases. In 1927 the museum acquired a collection owned by the Bloch brothers from Prague. In addition to the works of German painters, the collection comprised the paintings of Prague Germans and even of some Czech artists, the first to appear in the museum's collection, since Czech art had not figured until then. During World War II the majority of museum exhibits - including paintings - were stored for safety at the Lemberk, Sloup and Milešov manor houses. After the war, the museum's department of visual art brought the paintings out of hiding, moving them to their future independent art gallery in a Neo-Renaissance villa in the town center acquired by Jaro Beran, a painter and graphic artists from Liberec and the gallery's first post-war curator. The villa, located in the neighborhood of Liberec manor house, was buolt for Johann Liebieg Jr. by the Liberec building contractor Gustav Sachers between 1871 and 1872. Following its heyday as a spacious and comfortable family residence, the villa fell into neglect for a time, once Liebieg's descendants had lost interest in it. For a while the building even housed a police station, in addition to rented flats. Nonetheless, before long it turned out that Jaro Beran, who had returned to his native town immediately after World War II, had made the perfect choice in selecting the villa as a home for the gallery, undaunted by its pitiable state caused by long years of neglect. In 1946 the gallery opened in the still dilapidated villa, the interiors of which were to undergo phased renovation. In the course of the subsequent five decades they were to change beyond recognition in order to meet the needs of the gallery, whose collections expanded dramatically over the same period. In 1953 the establishment acquired independent legal status and became a regional gallery. After the abolition of the Liberec region as part of the administrative reorganization of Czechoslovakia, the institution was renamed the District Gallery. In late 1958 Hana Korecká-Seifertová, young art historian, was appointed curator of the gallery. Pursuing the activities initiated by her predecessor, aimed at collecting 20th-century Czech art, Seifertová focused predominantly on works of art created in the 1960s, although she also managed to acquire some magnificent paintings dating from the first half of this century. As this trend was followed in later decades as well, so the number of Liberec Art Gallery's treasures increased, and it currently boasts one of the most spectacular collections of 20th-century Czech visual art. This despite the fact that when it opened it did not possess a single painting by a Czech artist. Numerous applications from Czech and foreign exhibition organizers to borrow the gallery's works bear out the fact that its collection contains treasures of high artistic value. Moreover, Doctor Seifertová initiated the foundation of what still remains the establishment's smallest collection. Together with the conservationist V.V. Hlava, she reviewed old paintings acquired by the gallery in the course of its existence, especially the paintings brought to Sychrov manor house after World War II. The fruit of their joint research - and the subsequent conservation work - was the opening in 1961 of a new permanent exhibition entitled Old Masters. This laid the foundations for the creation of the gallery's new flagship collection, which has gradually crystallized into the series of paintings charting the history of Dutch art from the 16th to the 18th century. In addition to paintings, the Liberec district gallery boast marvelous independent collections of drawings, sculptures and graphic sheets, the later consisting of several thousands of items from the 1500s till the present time. Visitors to the gallery can tour three permanent exhibitions located on its first floor, where they are introduced to Dutch painting art from the 16th till the 18th century, 19th century French landscapes and 20th century Czech art. From late 1997 the gallery newly renovated ground floor will present visitors with part of its collection of 19th century German and Austrian paintings. The gallery's ground floor museum of graphic art and exhibition halls serve as venues for temporary exhibitions devoted to old and contemporary art alike. Thus as wide a circle of art lovers as possible can enjoy the opportunity of spending their spare time in the most pleasant manor, surrounded by splendid work of art. The gallery is open daily from 10.00 till 18.00 hours. Except on Monday's it's closed.

Věra Laštovková