The Šumperk Museum will offer an exhibition on Art Nouveau, also mapping out the local architecture

Šumperk – Starting next week, the Regional Museum in Šumperk will guide visitors into the Art Nouveau period. The exhibition titled Šumperk in the Embrace of Art Nouveau will offer rare exhibits from the museum's collections, including a borrowed set of ceramics from the Primavesi family's resort in Kouty nad Desnou, showcasing the most significant Art Nouveau architectural buildings in the region and personalities from this era. The exhibition in the Knight's Hall of the museum will open on June 24 and will last until September 5, said curator Kristina Lipenská to ČTK.

The Art Nouveau period has already appeared in the museum's program offerings, but only thematically, for example, when presenting Viennese architecture or borrowed Art Nouveau posters from Opava. "An exhibition mapping Šumperk's Art Nouveau architecture has been missing here so far. At the same time, we want to showcase some buildings in the region that are very progressive and were highly visited and admired in their time," the curator stated.

In addition to sculptures, paintings, and exhibits characterizing Art Nouveau fashion and decorative arts, the work of extraordinary personalities will be presented, including Karl Benirschke, a Viennese architect and a native of Šumperk, and his brother Max, an interior architect and designer. "Significant attention will be given to the iconic building by architect Josef Hoffmann, the summer residence of the Primavesi family in Kouty nad Desnou, whose main building succumbed to a fire in 1922," the curator mentioned.

The resort was created by the renowned Viennese architect at the beginning of the 20th century for banker Otto Primavesi. The entrepreneurial Primavesi family, who hailed from Italy, resided in Olomouc at the Primavesi Villa, which is one of the most valuable examples of Viennese Art Nouveau in Central Europe. The building on University Street in Olomouc was reconstructed years ago and is listed as a national cultural monument.

According to the curator, the focus of the exhibition will be on the collections of the Šumperk museum. "One of the main attractions of the exhibition will be a rare preserved set of figurative ceramics borrowed from the Silesian Museum in Opava, which the sculptor Anton Hanak created for the tiled stoves of the resort in Kouty. The sculptor worked for the Primavesi family alongside Josef Hoffmann, but also with Gustav Klimt. These are key figures of Viennese Art Nouveau," the curator noted. According to her, the exhibition aims to emphasize the interconnectedness of the Šumperk region with the Viennese cultural center.