Auction for the House of Art in Brno raised more than 900 thousand

Brno - The House of Arts of the City of Brno today raised more than 900,000 crowns in a charity auction of works by affiliated artists. The money will be used to build a café in the gallery's headquarters at Malinovského Square. The headquarters is currently being renovated. The city has allocated 45 million crowns for the repairs, which will be completed in a year. However, there were no funds left for the café, which Brno's gallery owners consider an important part of the exhibition space. That is why the House of Arts organized the auction.
    At the auction, people could choose from 145 works by 105 artists of all generations from the Czech Republic, Slovakia, and Austria. The highest bid was for the glass sculpture by Stanislav Libenský and Jaroslava Brychtová, which sold for 345,000 crowns. A pastel by Adriena Šimotová sold for 79,000 crowns, and an oil on canvas by Miroslav Štolfa for 70,000 crowns.
    The auction catalog also included works by Josef Bolf, Jiří David, Kurt Gebauer, Viktor Pivovarov, and Václav Stratil. The works that did not find a buyer today will be offered by the House of Arts in an online auction. Bidding on the internet will last until November 30.
    The café is to be established in the area where a restaurant once operated. However, the spaces will change significantly. The rooms are in the basement. The gallery owners plan to excavate the soil around this part of the building so that the café can have large windows and, above all, a comfortable outdoor patio.
    The main building of the House of Arts at Malinovského Square was built in 1910 in the style of Viennese Secession according to a design by Heinrich Ried and originally bore the name of Emperor Franz Joseph. It served the German-speaking minority in Brno as an exhibition hall. After World War II, the city took over the building, and architect Bohuslav Fuchs renovated it in the spirit of the so-called Brno functionalism. For many years, the building housed the Theater Na provázku, now known as Husa na provázku.