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Students of Humanities and Arts Programmes at UJOP Exchange the Classroom for the Inspiring Setting of Museum Kampa

On the afternoon of 10 April 2026, students of the Humanities Preparatory Programme and the Art and Architecture Programme spent their time at the Owls' mills (Sovovy mlýny) in Prague’s Malá Strana district, which houses a collection of modern art. Nonna Lorenz, a ceramic artist, designer and course lecturer, prepared a guided introduction to twentieth-century Czech visual art for young people from several countries around the world.

She introduced them to the work of graphic artist, illustrator and painter Václav Sokol, whose paintings are rich in symbolism and combine biblical elements with the most ordinary motifs of everyday life.

Through the works of Valerián Karoušek and Jiří Novák, she highlighted the creative principles by which both sculptors contributed to the emergence of new figurative and constructivist tendencies in Czech art during the 1960s.

In the paintings of the married artists Zdeněk Rybka and Jaroslava Kurandová, students with an interest in Czech visual art were able to observe the transition from academic figurative painting to a geometric style characterised by a broad spectrum of colours.

Two exhibition halls were literally filled with eighty colourful flower paintings on blue backgrounds by Václav Špála, a master of floral still lifes. He painted a total of 800 such works, personally rated them, and awarded only thirty-two of them his highest classifications: “rare” or “primissima”.

The highlight of the event was a tour of a collection of works by František Kupka, one of the most significant representatives of twentieth-century art. These works form part of the collection of Jan and Meda Mládek, renowned promoters of Czech culture abroad, who donated their collection to the City of Prague.

Nonna Lorenz drew her students’ attention not only to the artistic principles underlying the exhibited works but also linked her commentary to topics covered in class and to the practice of Czech grammar and vocabulary. She provided them not only with knowledge important for their future studies, but also with inspiration for their own artistic work.