GAVU Cheb presents the work of Oskar Spielmann (1901–1974). It is the first comprehensive commemoration of an artist from the former Czechoslovakia since 1936, when the painter himself showed his work in Brno, Prague, and Bratislava. This German-speaking native of Brno was a part of the interwar art scene in the Czech lands. At the same time, his more than thirty years of residence in Algeria and Morocco distinguish him in many other ways. After studying in Vienna and at the Prague Academy, he worked in the ranks of the Brno art association Scholle. In 1931, thanks to receiving a scholarship, he went to Paris; from there, he continued on to Algiers, remaining in North Africa until the mid-1960s. A baptised Catholic with Jewish roots, Spielmann was soon integrated into the Algerian art scene and became a firm presence in exhibitions of French North African art. In 1945 he received the prestigious Algerian Art Grand Prix, which definitively established his status as an Algerian artist. Spielmann remained in the country during its initial years of independence, where he also worked as a secondary school teacher. Nevertheless, he eventually left Algeria, spending the latter years of his life in the southern French port city of Toulon.

A Central European, Spielmann became part of the so-called Algerian School and largely identified with the Arab culture. His artistic legacy, created at the end of the colonial era, bridges the cultural worlds of the imaginary East and West. This exhibition features over eighty paintings and large-scale gouaches from institutional and private collections, and approximately half of the pieces were borrowed from the French portion of the artist’s estate. Most of Spielmann’s works will now be seen by contemporary audiences in the Czech Republic for the very first time.