Náš český Millet? Joža Uprka, lidové a české umění

Abstract

In April 2022, the Albín Polášek Museum in Florida closed a large exhibition of paintings by Joža Uprka from the private collection of a collector living near Chicago. This exhibit was to be later shown at the Czech embassies in Washington and Paris. In the USA, the work of Joža Uprka is still popular, alongside expressions of folk culture, which take many forms. They range from collected items to observing folk traditions by the diaspora of many generations. The town of Cedar Rapids, Iowa, for example, has always had a strong Czech community, and today it houses the National Czech and Slovak Museum, which regularly exhibits folk art and works of art closely associated with folk culture of the homeland. The diaspora has preserved a specific Czechness, Slovakness and even a Czechoslovak character of folk art, as seen in the practices of folk culture or captured in the paintings by artists such as Uprka. The text examines understanding of folk art as Czech and national, while I focus mainly on the territory outside of today’s Czech Republic. Why has the Czech and Slovak diaspora, even in large urban agglomerations, associated folk art so intimately with the nation and national art? Who has been promoting these associations? Have they been accepted universally, or were there any alternatives of national art?