Emil Přikryl will receive a state award for his contribution to architecture

Emil Přikryl

Prague - The State Prize for Literature will be awarded to the poet and editor Ivan Wernisch, while the prize for translation will go to the romanist Vladimír Mikeš. The Ministry of Culture award for contributions to the field of theater will be given to choreographer Pavel Šmok, and in the field of music to pianist and educator Zuzana Růžičková. The jury for the visual arts selected art historian and expert on Art Nouveau Petr Wittlich, and for contributions to architecture, Emil Přikryl will be honored.
    Today, at a press conference, Minister of Culture Alena Hanáková (TOP 09 and STAN) announced the laureates, who will receive their awards on Wednesday evening at the National Theatre. The Czech Television will broadcast the recording on the same day.
    "Our jury awarded the prize to the antiquarian Ivan Wernisch, who works at the Ztichlá klika bookstore. He celebrated his seventieth birthday last summer, but that anniversary was certainly not a reason for him to receive an award on that occasion," said the chairman of the relevant committee, Josef Chuchma. The jury evaluated 28 nominations, and Wernisch quickly made it to the finals. Ivan Wernisch has been a constant presence in Czech literature, especially in the last decade as a remarkable editor, Chuchma reminded.
    "Yet he stands almost on the edge, questioning what poetry is, what its canons are, reminding of forgotten names in Czech literature, and challenging his own work by constantly trying something new," he highlighted the reasons for awarding Wernisch.
    Significant Czech romanist, translator, and essayist Mikeš also engages in his own artistic writing, particularly in drama and prose. He translates from Spanish, French, and Italian literature across periods and genres. "His bibliography, which includes around a hundred entries, features Molière, Cervantes, Racine, Lorca, Pasolini, Prévert, Cocteau. Not only does he master and understand his craft, but he also knows how to explain it to younger generations," said the chairman of the jury, Libor Dvořák. In 2009, Mikeš published his translation opus magnum: Dante's Divine Comedy.
    In the field of theater, the jury selected from 15 nominations, and the minister will award Pavel Šmok for his lifetime artistic achievements in the development of dance and theater art in the Czech Republic and for promoting Czech music and dance internationally. Šmok, who celebrated his 85th birthday on Monday, has significantly influenced the development of Czech artistic dance in the 20th and 21st centuries.
    For his lifetime contribution to Czech music both artistically and pedagogically, and for its presentation abroad, the minister will award Zuzana Růžičková. She also celebrated her 85th birthday this year. Her interpretative range extends from Baroque to contemporary Czech composers.

Galerie Benedikta Rejta

    Petr Wittlich will receive the award for his long-term theoretical and pedagogical work in the field of art history. He has been associated with the field of art history at Charles University for his entire career, where he has been a living guru for several generations of art historians. This year he turned 80. He is the author of three publications on Czech Art Nouveau, including the substantial Czech Secession from 1982, which many people have in their libraries, though few have read it, as the chairman of the visual arts committee Vít Havránek said today. "Throughout his life, he followed changes in thinking within the art sciences, always integrating related fields such as the sociology of art or iconography into the history of art itself," he added.
    Emil Přikryl will receive the minister's award for his long-term artistic and pedagogical contributions to architecture. His well-known projects include the reconstruction of the Benedikt Rejt Gallery in Louny. Though Přikryl does not have many completed projects, experts state that those he has completed are characterized by a quality that already ensures him a notable place in the Parnassus of Czech architecture, the jury noted.