The City Gallery Prague (for short GHMP) was founded by the decree of the council of the National Committee of the City of Prague in 1963. It had to collect, conserve, study and
exhibit Czech art of the 19th and 20th centuries. At the same time it was responsible for restoration and erection of monuments, sculptures, memorial tablets and fountains in public places in Prague.
The collections of the City Gallery Prague started to grow, however, almost a hundred years before its legal establishment, at the time when the idea of a city gallery emerged. The first written proposal of its establishment was made by the Artistic organisation in 1865, and was
based on the idea of the painter Josef Manes.
The problem of the foundation of the city gallery appeared again in the centre of interest after the revolution of 1918 when Prague became the capital of the newly founded, independent Czechoslovakia Republic. After 1945 the Central National Committee lent its best paintings and several sculptures to the National Gallery which was preparing an exhibition of paintings and sculptures from the ownership of the city of Prague in the exhibition halls of
the Prague Municipal Library. In 1950, at the exhibition in
the House at the Hybernians works forming the decoration of public halls and offices were presented. The audience could see these works again as late as in the late 1960's, this time the exhibition was organised by the newly founded the City Gallery of Prague.
After the establishment of the Gallery, its scholars oriented at scholarly research, gradual publication and systematic completion of its collections. The Gallery received
Bilek's villa as the site of its collections (the permanent exhibition of sculptures and drawings by Frantisek Bilek was opened there in 1966), and a neighbouring villa, also designed by the artist, in Mickiewiczova street at Hradcany. Then it received
Troja castle as an exhibition hall, the exhibition hall on the second floor of
the Old Town Hall, later also its Cross Corridor and the Knights' Hall. The studios of
the Prague Municipal House were also aimed to serve the Gallery. Later there were several important exhibitions where audiences could see, on the one hand, the best artefacts collected by the city of Prague over the last hundred years, and on the other hand, extraordinary and priceless exhibits from the Gallery's collections.
In the 1970's the studios of the Municipal House and later also the Troja castle were withdrawn from the Gallery's disposal, the Gallery was therefore forced to close its only permanent exhibition - Bilek's studio, and to create a provisional depository there instead. The City Gallery Prague then rarely presented its collections in cooperating galleries in Czechoslovakia and other socialist countries, by which it verified the importance and impact of its collections. In 1983, on the 20
th anniversary of the foundation, the gallery organised the exhibition from all of its collection funds in all exhibition halls of the Old Town Hall - there were paintings, drawings, prints and sculptures, and this exhibition wished to connect the publicly known artefacts with newly exhibited works. The reaction of the communist party bodies was so unfavourable that the exhibition had to be closed and re-installed immediately after its opening.
When
Jaroslav Fatka was named new director of the City Gallery Prague in 1984, the approach towards the collections started to change. The Gallery did not cease it its efforts to collect the hardly obtainable historical material, but it predominantly started to study, observe and prefer contemporary artists - including the youngest ones, and in 1997 it also founded a
collection of contemporary photography. Under the leadership of the new director the gallery got back
Troja castle which was reconstructed according to its needs and where
the permanent exhibition of Czech art of the 19th century is held. The National Committee also met the gallery's wish to get the reconstructed
the Stone Bell House on the Old Town Square where since 1988 the Gallery has held large exhibitions (often in cooperation with important Czech and foreign institutions) whose common idea is to present extraordinary artistic and historical features in detail, and to show Czech visual arts in the international scope.
At present, Bilek Villa in Prague is also devoted to the work of its author. The exhibition halls of
the Prague Municipal Library were returned to the ownership of the city after more than sixty years, too, and in 1994, after a reconstruction, the gallery started to hold
exhibitions of contemporary and modern art there. The Gallery managed to keep the exhibition space on the second floor of the Old Town Hall, and lately it has served as an experimental space where the youngest authors are presented. The newest permanent exhibition is that of Czech art of the 20
th century, opened in May 1998 in the reconstructed
the Golden Ring House in Ungelt.
Guide 
