Prague hosts major retrospective of Jaroslav Čermák

A major exhibition featuring the works of 19th-century Czech painter Jaroslav Čermák is opening in Prague on November 4. Organized in collaboration with the National Gallery Prague, the retrospective brings together paintings, portraits, landscapes, and drawings from various Czech and international collections for the first time in nearly a century.

Čermák, who studied in Prague, Antwerp, and Brussels before establishing a career in Paris, gained international recognition for his depictions of Balkan struggles for independence from the Ottoman Empire. The exhibition includes rare international loans, such as the massive 1868 painting “Spoils of War” from the Royal Museums of Fine Arts of Belgium, which measures nearly four meters in width.

Other notable works on display include “The Wounded Montenegrin” (1873), on loan from Zagreb, and a monumental unfinished composition depicting captive Herzegovinian women. The collection aims to explore how Čermák’s subjects reflected 19th-century political tensions and the expectations of European audiences.