Jaromír Funke and the Amateur Avant-Garde

May 3 – August 9, 2009
West Building, Ground Floor, Inner Tier Galleries G30–G32

This exhibition is no longer on view at the National Gallery.

Overview: 68 black-and-white photographs and 2 volumes from the National Gallery of Art and loans from private collections were displayed in this exhibition highlighting the work of Czech amateur photographer Jaromír Funke and his compatriots from the 1920s to the time of the artist's death in 1945. Works by Josef Sudek and Eugen Wiskovsky were included. This was the first major exhibition of Funke's work outside Europe in nearly 25 years.

Exhibition curator Matthew S. Witkovsky presented a lecture, The Curious Case of Czech Photographer Jaromír Funke, on June 28. Films by Czech filmmaker Karel Vachek were shown during June.

Organization: The exhibition was organized by the National Gallery of Art. Matthew S. Witkovsky, curator and chair of the department of photography, Art Institute of Chicago, and former associate curator, department of photographs, National Gallery of Art, was exhibition curator.

Sponsor: The exhibition was supported by The Ryna and Melvin Cohen Family Foundation and Marcella and Neil Cohen. The brochure was made possible by the Trellis Fund.

Attendance: 40,209

Brochure: Jaromír Funke and the Amateur Avant-Garde by Matthew S. Witkovsky. Washington: National Gallery of Art, 2009.