Description: The small house at 75 Tereza Nováková street might appear to be just another of the many in Litomyšl that sport descriptive plaques, but its unassuming facade conceals a significant example of independent Czechoslovakian art and a fascinating story of an artist, a collector, their friendship, and its demise.
The
Portmoneum is the former home of
Josef Portman, a native of Litomyšl, who inherited a love of printing, graphic-art, and literature from his typographer father. Despite modest means (he was a teacher and librarian) he became an avid collector of original prints and books of the Czechoslovakian avant-garde of the day; especially the verse of poet Otakar Březina and later, the woodcuts, and illustrations of Josef Váchal.
Josef Váchal, as well as being an illustrator, was also an author, woodcarver, creator of typefaces, and a bookbinder. In the newly-independent (from the Habsburg-ruled Austro-Hungarian empire at the end of WWI) Czechoslovakia of the 1920s he was open to a wide spectrum of influences. Art Nouveau symbolism, northern expressionism (think of Edvard Munch), and futurism all intertwined with his skills as a craftsman to create a unique style of artistic expression.
Portman initiated correspondence with Váchal in order to purchase artwork, and after several years the men became friends and Váchal agreed to decorate the interior of Portman’s house in Litomyšl. Portman had requests such as
"with that statue in the alcove, for that 600 crowns, carve out something devilish, grimacing… let him have glass eyes which could be given a coat of that luminous paint… Just imagine how diabolic it would look in that recess, as if the eyes were glowing". In small bursts between August 1920 and July 1924, almost the entire interior of the house was covered with Váchal’s demons, serpents and monsters.
Tensions developed over the work and the friendship suffered further when Portman chose not to purchase a copy of Váchal’s new novel; Murder Story, which was set in a thinly disguised Litomyšl (the local town of L.) and featured Portman as one of the main characters (Count Portmon). The last straw for the friendship was when the artist sold a unique and irreplaceable copy of Otakar Březina’s verse, which had been lent to him by Portman for illustration.
The Portmoneum museum itself is smaller than you may expect from a place of such import; just three rooms and a corridor. The first room houses displays explaining the history of the building and the two main characters in its story, as well as prints and furniture decorated by Váchal. The next two rooms are decorated with Váchal’s murals; walls, window reveals and ceilings; the paintings are primitive and demonic and the claustrophobic effect is something like being in a cave of nightmares.
After the fall of communism in 1989, the house was in atrocious condition, and after a long and extensive reconstruction it opened in June 1993 to provide a vivid and absorbing glimpse into the avant-garde of Czechoslovakian art in the 1920s.
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