This article was first presented at the Jule Collins Smith Museum of Fine Art at Auburn University on the occasion of an exhibition on loan from the Iris and B. Gerald Cantor Foundation. I wish to thank Donna Bohanan, Petra Kolářová, Lubomír Konečný, Mary Neuburger, Andrea Orzoff, Nicholas Sawicki, J. Garth Stauffer, Hana Rambousková, Hana Ripkova, and Nancy M. Wingfield for assistance at various stages of its completion. I am extremely grateful to the wonderful staffs of the Archive of the Musée Rodin in Paris, the Archive of the City of Prague, and the Archive of the National Gallery of the Czech Republic. Also, I wish to thank the anonymous readers and Jane T. Hedges and Mark D. Steinberg of Slavic Review for many insightful comments and suggestions.

1 The evolution of distinct Czech and German national communities in nineteenth-century Bohemia and the history of conflicts between them have received much attention. In addition to specific works listed in notes, see Cohen, Gary B., The Politics of Ethnic Survival: Germans in Prague, 1861–1914, 2d ed. (West Lafayette, Ind., 2006);Google Scholar Křen, Jan, Konfliktni společenstvi: Češi Němci, 1780–1918 (Prague, 1990);Google Scholar and Wingfield, Nancy M., Flag Wars and Stone Saints: How the Bohemian Lands Became Czech (Cambridge, Mass., 2007).Google Scholar

2 Peter Zusi discusses long-term political uses of culture in Czech history in his “Tendentious Modernism: Karel Teige's Path to Functionalism,” Slavic Review 67, no. 4 (Winter 2008): 821–39. He quotes Alexej Kusak, Kultura a politika v Československu, 1945–1956(Prague, 1998), 23: “Czech culture inherited a value system that placed functional value [funkcni hodnota] above immanent value. The criterion for evaluation thus could not be the greatness or originality of a cultural act … but rather its utility, its usefulness in the political struggle of the nation” (822). Slavic Review 69, no. 3 (Fall 2010)

3 The exhibition catalogue is Katalog výstavy dĕl sochaře Aug. Rodina v Praze (Prague, 1902). Studies of the exhibition include Kobelová, Helena, “Rodinova pra!ská výstava a jeho návštĕva v Praze,” Documenta Pragensia 2 (1981): 106–24;Google Scholar Juříková, Magdalena, “Výstava A. Rodina vzrcadel archivních dokumentů” in Halifova, Marie, ed., PoctaRodinovi (Prague, 1992), 14–17;Google Scholar Masaryková, Anna, “Rodin in Prag,” in AugusteRodin: Plastik, Zeich-nungen (East Berlin, 1979), 79–84;Google Scholar and, of great significance, Nicholas Savvicki, “Rodin and the Prague Exhibition of 1902: Promoting Modernism and Advancing Reputations,” Cantor Arts Center Journal?, (2002–3): 185–97.

4 Archiv hlavního města Prahy, S.V.U. Mánes (AMP SVUM), Kniha výstav (Kalkulace), sig. 4.3.1. This bound ledger lists numbers of visitors to all Mánes exhibitions from 1902 to 1909 and profits and losses for most exhibitions (the Rodin exhibition's losses are not among those listed).

5 I am borrowing the language and concept of national activists from Judson, Pieter M., Guardians of the Nation: Activists on the Language Frontiers of Imperial Austria (Cambridge, Mass., 2007).Google Scholar

6 Ibid. See also Bjork, James E., Neither German nor Pole: Catholicism and National Indifference in a Central European Borderland (Ann Arbor, 2008);CrossRefGoogle Scholar King, Jeremy, Budiueisers into Czechs and Germans: A Local History of Bohemian Politics, 1848–1948 (Princeton, 2002);Google Scholar Kořalka, Jiří, “Fünf Tendenzen einer modernen nationalen Entvvicklung in Böhmen”, in Kořalka, Jiří, ed., Tschechen im Habsburgerreich und in Europa, 1815–1914 (Vienna, 1991), 23–75;Google Scholar and Luft, Robert, “Nationale Utraquisten in Böhmen: Zur Problematik 'nationaler Zwischenstellungen' am Ende des 19. Jahrhunderts,” in Godé, Maurice, Rider, Jacques Le, and Meyer, François, eds., Allemands, Juifs et Tchèques à Prague (Montpellier, 1996), 37–51.Google Scholar

7 For information on the 1891 Provincial Jubilee Exhibition and the 1895 CzechoSlavic Ethnographic Exhibition, both held in Prague, see Giustino, Cathleen M., Tearing Down Prague's Jewish Toiun: Ghetto Clearance and the Legacy of Middle-Class Ethnic Politics around 1900 (Boulder, Colo., 2003), 65–68 and 267–70.Google Scholar

8 Ibid.; Judson, Guardians of the Nation; Nolte, Claire, The Sokol in the Czech Ixmds to 1914: Training for the Nation (New York, 2002);Google Scholar Kelly, T. Mills, Without Remorse: Czech National Socialism in Late-Habsburg Austria (Boulder, Colo., 2006)Google Scholar; Paces, Cynthia, Prague Panoramas: National Memory and Sacred Space in the Twentieth Century (Pittsburgh, 2009);CrossRefGoogle Scholar Zahra, Tara, Kidnapped Souls: National Indifference and the Battle for Children in the Bohemian Lands, 1900–1948 (Ithaca, 2008).Google Scholar

9 A recent contribution to the study of the role of cultural diplomacy in the making of Czechoslovak identity is Orzoff, Andrea, Battle for the Castle: The Myth of Czechoslovakia in Europe, 1914–1948 (Oxford, 2009).CrossRefGoogle Scholar See also David-Fox, Katherine, “Prague-Vienna, Prague-Berlin: The Hidden Geography of Czech Modernism,” Slavic Review 59, no. 4 (Winter 2000): 735–60,CrossRefGoogle Scholar and Bugge, Peter, '“Something in the View Which Makes You Linger': Bohemia and Bohemians in British Travel Writing, 1836–1857,” Central Europe, 7 no. 1 (May 2009): 3–29 Google Scholar, which do not treat international exhibitions but do shed light on transnational activities promoting the construction and dissemination of Czech being. Useful articles for conceptualizing approaches to the study of cultural diplomacy more generally can be found in Gienow-Hecht, Jessica C. E. and Schumacher, Frank, eds., Culture and. International History (New York, 2004).Google Scholar

10 In an important way, these folk traditions were modern, having been invented during the nineteenth century as distinct Czech and German identities were constructed from an older Bohemian identity. But just how “Czech” these traditions were is open to question, rooted as they were in a shared Bohemian past and elements common to other rural cultures. For discussions of the modern nature of many nineteenth-century traditions, see Hobsbawm, Eric and Ranger, Terence, eds., The Invention of Tradition (Cambridge, Eng., 1983).Google Scholar For recognition of Hungarian elements in the uniform of the Czech nationalist gymnastics association, the Sokol, see Nolte, Claire E., “All for One! One for All! The Federation of Slavic Sokols and the Failure of NeoSlavism,” in Judson, Pieter M. and Rozenblit, Marsha L., eds., Constructing Nationalities in East Central Europe (New York, 2004), 126.Google Scholar

11 Western European interest in folk culture from the Austrian monarchy is discussed in Holme, Charles, ed., Peasant Art in Austria and Hungary (London, 1911).Google Scholar For more information on this fascination with peasant culture, see Crowley, David, “The Uses of Peasant Design in Austria-Hungary in the Late Nineteenth and Early Twentieth Centuries,” Studies in the Decorative Arts 2, no. 2 (Spring 1995): 2–28.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

12 The literature on world's fairs and international exhibitions is growing. For displays and goals of dominant groups, see Greenhalgh, Paul, Ephemeral Vistas: The Expositions Universelles: Great Exhibitions, and World 'sFairs, 1851–1939 (Manchester, Eng., 1988);Google Scholar Hale, Dana S., Races on Display: French Representations of Colonized Peoples, 1886–1940 (Bloomington, Ind., 2008);Google Scholar Mainardi, Patricia, Art and Politics of the Second Empire: The Universal Expositions of 1855 and 1867 (New Haven, Conn., 1987);Google Scholar Rydell, Robert W., All the World's a Fair: Visions of Empire at American International Expositions, 1876–1916 (Chicago, 1987);Google Scholar and Rydell, Robert W. and Gwinn, Nancy E., eds., Fair Representations: World's Fairs and the Modern World (Amsterdam, 1994)Google Scholar. Newer studies exploring nonhegemonic groups' displays and goals include Hoffenberg, Peter, An Empire on Display: English, Indian and Australian Exhibitions from the Crystal Palace to the Great War (Berkeley, 2001);Google Scholar and Tenorio-Trillo, Mauricio, Mexico at the World's Fairs: Crafting a Modern Nation (Berkeley, 1996).Google Scholar A useful brief article is Benedict, Burton, “International Exhibitions and National Identity,” Anthropology Today 7, no. 3 (June 1991): 5–9.CrossRefGoogle Scholar A Czech-language study of world fairs is Halada, Jaroslav and Hlavacka, Milan, Svetove výstavy: Od Londyna 1851 po Hannover (Prague, 2000).Google Scholar

13 For a collection of essays recognizing nationalism's constitutive presence in modern art, see Facos, Michelle and Hirsh, Sharon L., eds., Art, Culture, and National Identity in Fin-de-Siecle Europe (Cambridge, Eng., 2003)Google Scholar. See also Crowley, David, National Style and Nation-State (Manchester, 1992);Google Scholar and Lane, Barbara Miller, National Romanticism and Modern Architecture in Germany and the Scandinavian Countries (Cambridge, Eng., 2000).Google Scholar

14 A book that introduces readers to modern artists in central and eastern Europe but hardly discusses local conditions shaping their work is Mansbach, Stephen A., Modern Art in Eastern Europe: From the Baltic to the Balkans, ca. 1890–1939 (Cambridge, Eng., 1999).Google Scholar A critical review of Mansbach's book, which accused it of “mak[ing] Eastern European painters and sculptors seem like examples of some belated avant-garde entirely dependent on Western European predecessors,” is Elkins, James, “Review of Stephen Mansbach, Modern Art in Eastern Europe,” in Art Bulletin 82, no. 4 (2000): 781–85.CrossRefGoogle Scholar Elkins raises the important question: “What is the global nature of modernism?”

15 Exceptions were the Hungarian and Bosnian-Herzegovinian Pavilions at the 1900 Paris World's Fair.

16 Something similar happened at the 1893 World Columbian Exhibition in Chicago. There Czech painter Vaclav Bro!ík's Defenestration and First Communion of the Hussites were displayed in the Austrian section of the Art Palace along with works by AustroGerman Hans Makart and Hungarian Mihály Munkacsy. See Bancroft, Hubert Howe, The Book of the Fair (Chicago, 1893), 733–35,Google Scholar which is found on the Web site “World's Colum-bian Exposition of 1893” at columbus.gl.iit.edu (last accessed 17 May 2010). For a defini-tion of utraquism in the late nineteenth-century Bohemian context, see Luft, “Nationale Utraquisten,” 42n18.

17 Zeyer had a Czech nanny who told him Czech stories as a young boy; it is thought that her influence led him to choose a Czech identity. Pynsent, Robert B., Julius Zeyer: The Path to Decadence (Mouton, 1973)Google Scholar provides some biography. Essays on Zeyer's influence on Czech visual arts are in Sochy, obrazy a sny: fulius Zeyer a výtvarné umění (Český Krumlov, 1988). He often incorporated his passion for nonwestern culture into his stories. See Gálik, Marián, ÉC;Julius Zeyer's Version of Ma Zhiyuan's Lady Zhaojun: A Xiongnu Bride in Czech Attire,” Asian and African Studies 15, no. 2 (2006): 152–66.Google Scholar

18 Quote found in Lenderová, Milená, Zdenka Braunerova (Prague, 2000), 83 Google Scholar. During the 1870s Braunerovaá studied under the Czech academic painters Antonín Chitussi and Soběslav Hippolyt Pinkas. In the 1880s she trained in Paris at the Académie Colarossi (Alfons Mucha and Josef Čapek also studied there). At the 1889 World's Fair, a single oil painting of hers was included in the show of the Union des Femmes Paintres (founded in 1881 to promote the work of women artists; due to its efforts women were allowed into the French Academy in 1897). In Prague, where there was nothing like this union, the first women's exhibition was held only in 1909. Lenderová, Zdenka Braunerová, 88. On the French Union des Femmes Paintres, see Garb, Tamar, Sisters of the Brush: Women's Artistic Culture in Late Nineteenth-Century Paris (New Haven, 1994).Google Scholar

19 Quotation found in Petr Štembera, “The Pavilion of Bosnia and Herzegovina: A Reflection,” in Milan Hlavačka, Jana Orlíková, and Petr Štembera, Alphonse Mucha — Paris 1900: The Pavilion of Bosnia and Herzgovina at the World Exhibition (Prague, 2002), 77; original in Osvěta27 (1900): 533.

20 Tyršová helped run the Prague Industrial and Continuation School for Girls, where Czech girls were taught dressmaking and embroidery. The school's main purpose was to give Czech women an independent livelihood, although it also served to preserve knowledge about traditional folk dress and crafts. For an English-language description of the school, see Levetus, A. S., “What Women Are Doing in Prague,” Womanhood 14, no. 79 (June 1905): 39–40.Google Scholar Tyršová, who was acutely aware of the power of international exhibi-tions for promoting the Czech nation in world eyes, contiibuted to fin-de-siècle displays of Czech folk art in Paris, St. Petersburg, and London. For more on Tyršová, see Taborsky, Frantisek, PaniRenata Tyršová: Pamdtnik napocestjejich sedmdesdtych naroienin (Prague, 1926).Google Scholar

21 The catalogue for his Paris exhibition, which lists 168 works (not many more than were shown in Prague), is Exposition de 1900: L'Oeuvre de Rodin (Paris, 1900). Sawicki addresses Rodin's concerns with his own reputation in “Rodin and the Prague Exhibition of 1902.” He also addresses Czech efforts to promote their nation's reputation. I am grateful to Sawicki for comments on an earlier draft of this article and advice on accessing materials in the Archive of the Musée Rodin.

22 Varied reactions to Rodin's work at the 1900 World's Fair are described in Leslie, Anita, Rodin: Immortal Peasant (New York, 1937), 183–90.Google Scholar For praise from an Englishman, see D. S. M., , “Art at the Paris Exhibition, III: Rodin,” Saturday Review 90 (1900): 392–93.Google Scholar He called Rodin “one of the supreme artists of all time.”

23 Masaryková, Anna, Josef Mařatka (Prague, 1958), 21–22.Google Scholar

24 Useful introductions to the history of the Mánes Association include Lenka Byd!ovská, “Spolek výtvarných umělců Mánes vletech 1887–1907” (diss., Ústavteorie a dějin umění ČSAV, 1989); Katherine David-Fox, “The 1890s Generation: Modernism and National Identity in Czech Culture, 1890–1900” (PhD diss., Yale University, 1996); and Prahl, Roman and Byd!ovská, Lenka, Freie Richtungen: Die Zeitschrift der Prager Secession und. Moderne (Prague, 1993), 11–20.Google Scholar

25 Prahl and Byd!ovská, Freie Richtungen.

26 It merits noting that Mánes artists, like artists elsewhere in the fin de siecle, did not use the term modern but referred to dieir art as “new” or “young.” See Naomi Hume, “Contested Cubisms: Transformations of the Czech Avant-Garde, 1910–1914” (PhD diss., University of Chicago, 2004), 5.

27 “Slavnostní otevření výstavy Aug. Rodina,” Národní listy, 11 May 1902, 2.

28 The persistence of culture's political function among fin-de-siècle Czech modernists is shown in Zusi, “Tendentious Modernism,” 825.

29 Born of Czech origins in Nová Paka, Sucharda (1866–1916) was appointed professor of sculpture at Prague's Academy of Fine Arts in 1899. His best-known work is the Rodin-inspired František Palacký Monument, one of three monuments erected in fin-de-siècle Prague (the other two are Ladislav Šaloun's Jan Hus on the Old Town Square, also showing Rodin's influence, and Josef V. Myslbek's more traditional Saint Wenceslas on Wenceslas Square). Martin Krummholz provides biographic information on Sucharda in Stanislav Sucharda (1866–1916) (Nová Paka, 2006).

30 Sucharda, Stanislav, "První výstava Mánes," Volné směry 2 (1898): 231–35.Google Scholar

31 Archives, Musée Rodin, Paris (AMRodin), folder "Tchecoslovaquie Prague'Mánes'" (Expos 1901–1902,1908–1911 et letters dugroupe Mánes), letter from Sucharda and Schusser to Rodin, 22 September 1900.

32 Volné směry is slightly older than its Viennese Secession equivalent, Ver Sacrum,which began to appear in 1898.

33 The locus classicus of the vast literature on Viennese modernism is Schorske, Carl E., Fin-de-Siècle Vienna: Politics and Culture (New York, 1980).Google Scholar

34 For further details on the creation and circulation (about 2000 copies) of the special issue, see Sawicki, “Rodin and the Prague Exhibition of 1902,” 187.

35 AMRodin, folder “Tchecoslovaquie Prague 'Mánes'” (Expos 1901–1902, 1908–1911 et letters du groupe Mánes), letter from Kotěra and Jiránek to Rodin, 24 January 1902.

36 Giustino, Tearing Down Prague's Jewish Town.

37 For information on fin-de-siècle Franco-Czech relations, see Horska, Pavla, Sladká Francie (Prague 1996);Google Scholar Pavla Horská, “Praha—Paří!: K zahraničnĕ politické orientaci pra!ské mestské rady na přelomu 19. a 20. století,” Sborník historicitý 20 (1987): 97–137; Ferdinand Seibt, “Frankreich und die böhmischen Länder: Zur Einführung,” in Seibt, Ferdinand and Neumüller, Michael, eds., Frankreich und die böhmischen Länder im 19. und 20. Jahrhundert: Beiträge zum französischen Einjluβ in Oslmilteleuropa (Munich, 1990), 7–13;Google Scholar and Wittlich, Petr, Prague: Fin de Siècle (Prague, 1992).Google Scholar Information on Franco-Czech gymnastic ties can be found in Nolte, Sokol in the Czech Lands.

38 In 1889 Mařatka began his studies at the School of Applied Arts in Prague. He studied decorative sculpture with Celda Klouček, before changing to figural sculpture and working with Mysibek. Together Mysibek and Maratka moved to the reorganized Academy of Fine Arts in Prague in 1896. Mařatka's in 1898 work, Matka v úzkostéch (Anxious Mother), won him the Academy's first place prize. In 1900 he won the Hlávka Traveling Stipendium for his Ledáři na Vltavĕ (Ice Harvesters on the Vltava). Mařatka used the stipendium to travel to Paris, where he saw the 1900 World's Fair and fell in love with Rodin's oeuvre. His Czech-speaking colleagues in Paris introduced him to Rodin, who accepted the Czech sculptor as a student. See Archiv Národní galerie, Pozůstalost Mařatka, J. Pečírka, 'Josef Mařatka"; and Masaryková, Josef Mařatka, 9–24.

39 Mařatka listed some of Rodin's visitors in his memoirs. See Mašin, Jiří, ed., Josef Mařatka: Vzpominky a záznamy (Prague, 1987), 68.Google Scholar

40 AMP SVUM, carton 43, sig. 4.1, Výstavní činnost A. Rodina, letter from Mařatka to Sucharda, 5 March 1902, no. 140.

41 Ibid.

42 For descriptions of Rodin's London trip, see Tweed, Lendal, John Tweed: Sculptor (London, 1936), 100–101;Google Scholar and Newton, Joy, “Rodin Is a British Institution,” Burlington Magazine 136, no. 1101 (December 1994): 623–24.Google Scholar In London a large banquet in Rodin's honor was held on 15 May at the Cafe Royal on Regent Street. It followed the unveiling of Rodin's Saint John the Baptist in the Victoria and Albert Museum. John Tweed, a British sculptor from Glasgow and an admirer and friend of Rodin's, organized the purchase of the sculpture and most activities surrounding its unveiling. One event he did not orchestrate followed the banquet: students from London's Slade School of Art pulled Rodin's carriage down Piccadilly Circus to the Aits Club while John Singer Sargent played the cabby, driving the students forward with their celebrated passenger.

43 AMP SVUM, carton 43, sig. 4.1, Výstavní činnost A. Rodina, letter from John Tweed, president of the Artists Society, to S.V.U. Mánes, undated, no. 153.

44 AMP SVUM, carton 43, sig. 4.1, Výstavní činnost A. Rodina, letter from Mařatka to Sucharda, 5 March 1902, no. 140.

45 Sucharda and Mucha did not get along. See AMP SVUM, carton 43, sig. 4.1, Výstavní činnost A. Rodina, letter from Mařatka to Sucharda, 24 February 1902, no. 139.

46 Quote found in Štembera, “The Pavilion of Bosnia and Herzegovina,” 75.

47 Županský, who exemplified the decentralized artistic training of many Czechs, had studied at the Academy of Fine Arts in Vienna before returning to Prague to study at the Academy there.

48 Anne M. Wagner discusses (with illustrations) undressed and dressed versions of Rodin's Balzacm Wagner, “Rodin's Reputation,” in Hunt, Lynn, ed., Eroticism and the Body Politic (Baltimore, 1991), 191–242.Google Scholar

49 The argument that Županský's poster presented the solitude of genius amid universal chaos is made in Petra Kolářová, '“Balzac à l'affiche!' Graver la sculpture d'Auguste Rodin pout l'exposition de Prague en 1902,” in Beyer, Andreas, ed., Druckgraphik: Zwischen Reproduktion und Invention (Berlin, 2010).Google Scholar Kolářová makes her insightful argument drawing from F. X. Šalda's seminal essay on Rodin. See F. X. Šalda, “Géniova mateřština,” in Katalog výstavy dĕl; sochaře Aug. Rodina v Prate (Prague, 1902), no page numbers; reprinted in Šalda, František Xaver, “Géniova mateřština,” Volné smĕry 6 (1902): 185–88;Google Scholar and Šalda, F. X., Boje o zítřek (Prague, 1950), 75–80.Google Scholar The mother tongue of genius, Šalda wrote, was the language of “our most internal self.” Few individuals could hear it, because “in its everyday it continually and continually drains away into learned alienation, thin platitudes, and ancient conventions.” To get in touch with it, “One must encounter a great event, fate, or tragedy, and pound with an iron fist on the empty vault of our existence and burn with pain in our core.”

50 AMP SVUM, carton 43, sig. 4.1, Výstavní činnost A. Rodina, letter from Mařatka to Sucharda, 9 May 1902, no. 162. This letter to Sucharda is written on the response from Willing and Co. regarding the cost of hanging posters in London underground stations.

51 Ibid.

52 Ibid.

53 AMP SVUM, carton 43, sig. 4.1, Výstavní činnost A. Rodina, letter from Mařatka to Sucharda, undated (probably April 1902), no archive number.

54 AMP SVUM, carton 43, sig. 4.1, Výstavní činnost A. Rodina, letter from Mařatka to Sucharda, undated (sometime March 1902), no. 152.

55 Archiv hlavního města Prahy, Praesidium (AMP PRAES), B/28/64: “Rodin Aug., sochař, výstava jeho dĕl; v Praze,” letter from Mayor Vladimír Srb to Alfons Mucha, 23 March 1902.

56 AMP SVUM, carton 43, sig. 4.1, Výstavní činnost A. Rodina, letter from Mařatka to Sucharda, undated (written after the decision to build the exhibition pavilion), no. 149.

57 AMP SVUM, carton 43, sig. 4.1, Výstavní činnost A. Rodina, letter from Mařatka to Sucharda, undated (sometime March 1902), no. 152.

58 Kotěra was a professor at the School of Applied Arts, where he and Sucharda became friends. He instructed and inspired other important twentieth-century Czech architects, including the cubists Josef Gočár and Pavel Janák and the functionalists Jaromír Krejcar and Otakar Novotný. He served as editor of Volné směry and president of the Mánes Association. Kotera left his position at the School of Applied Arts in 1910 to become head of the new Architecture Department at Prague's Academy of Fine Arts. His good friend, Jo!e Plečnik, took his place at the School of Applied Arts. An excellent study of Kotěra's life and career is Vladimir Šlapeta, ed.,Jan Kotěra, 1871–1923: The Founder of Modern Czech Architecture (Prague, 2001).

59 Ibid., 252.

60 Ibid., 123. A picture of Townsend's Whitechapel Gallery appeared in Mádl, Karel B., “Sloh naší doby,” Volné smĕry 4 (1900): 159.Google Scholar This special issue, dedicated to modern architecture, included an article on Frank Lloyd Wright, whose designs influenced Kotera.

61 Owing to Otto Wagner's influence, such an asymmetrical floor plan was unusual in central Europe. Thus, in this building Kotera moved beyond Viennese modern architecture, achieving an original design. He might have drawn inspiration from Frank Lloyd Wright or aimed to create a “reduced Latin cross,” according to švácha, Rostislav, “Poznámky ke Kotěrovu muzeu,” Uměni 34 (1986): 171–79.Google Scholar

62 “ý,” Volné smĕry 1 (1896–97): 337–38.

63 The Rodin exhibition's designers were likely influenced by the Vienna Secession's 1901 Sargantini exhibition (the Secession's ninth exhibition, designed by Adolf Roller) in which fourteen Rodin works were displayed with careful distance from one another, simple decoration, and judicious lighting. For photos, see Ver Sacrum 4 (1901): 75–78. That Mánes members were aware of the Secession's modernist installation techniques is evident from Jiránek, Miloš, “Listy z Paří!e, II,” Volné smĕry 4 (1900): 40.Google Scholar Modernist display techniques in fin-de-siècle Prague and Vienna invite some comparison with those used at a later time in New York's Museum of Modern Art. On the latter, see Staniszewski, Mary Anne, The Power of Display: A History of Exhibition Installations at the Museum of Modern Art (Cambridge, Mass., 1998).Google Scholar More research on the history of modern display in central and eastern Europe would be welcome. For the Russian context, see the cluster, thematic in Slavic Review 67, no. 4 (Winter 2008).Google Scholar

64 The social conditions of exhibition enjoyment are discussed in Bourdieu, Pierre, The Love of Art: European Art Museums and Their Public (Cambridge, Eng., 1997).Google Scholar Awareness of the difficulty broad segments of society had in understanding the Rodin exhibition was revealed in a cartoon that appeared in the satirical weekly Humoristické listy, 23 May 1902.

65 It depicted one man looking at Županský's poster and asking, “And what does this mean? That somewhere there is an exhibition of spirits [duchu, which can also mean ghosts]?” Another man replied, “Only one spirit, uncle, but a great spirit.”Municipal officials waived a law prohibiting wood construction, so the pavilion, built in six weeks, could be completed on time. Due to fear of fire, smoking in the building was prohibited and the municipality stipulated that it be torn down once the exhibition ended. This stipulation was waived annually until the pavilion's demolition in 1916. Mánes next held shows in a rented space until 1930 when its permanent building, still standing near downtown Prague and designed by functionalist architect Otakar Novotný, was opened. See AMP SVUM, carton 133, sig. 8.1, Výstavní Pavilon v Kinské zahradĕ (1899–1917).

66 Czech differences and discord are examined through the history of Prague's urban modernization around 1900 in Giustino, Tearing Down Prague's Jewish Town.

67 Jana Orlíková, “Alphonse Mucha at the World Exhibition 1900,” in Hlavačka, Orlíková, and Štembera, Alphonse Mucha—Paris 1900, 41–42.

68 Jiří Mucha, Alfons Mucha (Prague, 1969), 272. This biography also describes how Czechs in the homeland did not appreciate Mucha's trying to give them lessons on how to be better Czechs. The elderly Mucha irritated his compatriots by accusing them of doing nothing more than imitating foreign models; Jiří quoted his father saying, “All I see is the same aping [opičení] of Vienna, Munich, and Paris” (269).

69 “Praha—Paří!,” Národní listy, 8 May 1902. For criticism of the report, see "Nelhat! Nelhat! Nelhat!" Čos: Orgán české strany lidové, 9 May 1902.

70 AMP SVUM, carton 43, sig. 4.1, Výstavní činnost A. Rodina, letter of Mařatka to Sucharda, May 1902 (no precise date), no. 145.

71 For a copy of the drawing, see Prahl and Byd!ovská, Freie Ricktungen, 63. On connections to Michelangelo, see Lubomír Konečný, “Švabinský, Rodin, Michelangelo, Moj!íš,” in Bukovinská, Beket, ed., Ars longa: Sbornik k nedo!tým sedmdesátinám josefa Krásy(Prague, 2003), 205–18.Google Scholar

72 Following the Rodin show, Švabinský produced a refined version of the invitation that the Mánes Association gave to Rodin as a memento. For the image, see “Dar Spolku výtvarných umĕlců 'Mánes' Mistru A. Rodinovi v upomínku najeho výstavu v Praze,” Volné smĕry 7 (1903): 2. In this version, Švabinský further exposed the female nude looking over Rodin's shoulder.

73 See Karl B. Mádl, “Ne na Źofín,” Národní listy, 21 September 1902; and Quidam [F. X. Šalda], “Stud nestydatých,” Volné smĕry 7 (1903): 24–28.

74 “Výklad k německým pozvánkam,” Národní listy, 30 May 1902. See also “Do zprávy o německých pozvánkách ke slavnostem Rodinovým,” Národní listy, 29 May 1902; and “V zále!itosti německých pozvánek 'Mánesových,'” Národní listy, 2 June 1902.

75 “(Zasláno),” Národní listy, 29 May 1902.

76 “(Zasláno),” Národní listy, 2 June 1902.

77 “Umění a národnost,” Národní listy, 4June 1902, 1.

78 AMRodin, folder "4enne Exposition de l'Association des Artistes tcheques des Beaux arts. Pavilion Mánes [sic]“ (“4enne Exposition”), letter from Jiranek to Rodin, undated.

79 AMP PRAES, Sig. B/28/64, letter from Sucharda to the City Council, 14 March 1902.

80 Mucha claimed his work on the Bosnian-Herzegovinian Pavilion inspired him to become a Czech national activist. After returning from Bosnia-Herzegovina, where he carried out research for die 1900 World's Fair, he wrote the following: “I saw my work adorning the salons of the highest society or flattering people of the great world with smiling and ennobled portraits. I saw the books full of legendary scenes, floral garlands, and drawings glorifying the beauty and tenderness of women. This was what my time, my precious time, was being spent on, when my nation was left to quench its thirst on ditch water. And in my spirit I saw myself sinfully misappropriating what belonged to my people. It was midnight and, as I stood there looking at all these things, I swore a solemn promise that the remainder of my life would be filled exclusively with work for the nation.” Quoted in Sayer, Derek, The Coast of Bohemia: A Czech History (Princeton, 2000), 19.Google Scholar

81 “Příjezd Augusta Rodina do Prahy,” Národní listy, 29 May 1902.

82 Ohmann was an architect from the Galician capital Lemberg/Lvov/Lviv whose Austro-German family served in the Habsburg imperial administration. As a youth he studied at German schools, and in 1897 he completed an architecture degree under Otto Wagner in Vienna. In 1898, at the age of 27, he was appointed professor of architecture at Prague's School of Applied Art. While he taught there, he created Prague's first secessionist buildings before leaving to work in Vienna. See Craig Kyle Anz, “Friedrich Ohmann's Vienna Stadtpark (1898–1907): Contextual Transformation of the Urban Landscape” (MS thesis, University of Texas, Austin, 2001). Fin-de-siécle Prague's other hotels with art nouveau trimmings were Hotel Europa (1903), Hotel Paris (1904), and Hotel Union (1906). For a contemporary article on Hotel Central, see Bendelmayer, Bedfich and Dryak, Alois, “Hotel Central v Praze,” Volné smĕry 6 (1902): 163–70.Google Scholar Bendelmayer and Dryak, both Czechs, designed many of Hotel Central's decorations.

83 “Uvítání Rodina na radnici Staroměstské,” Národní listy, 30 May 1902.

84 AMP SVUM, carton 43, sig. 4.1, Výstavní činnost A. Rodina, letter of Verein deutscherbildenderKunstlerin Bohmen toS.V.U. Mánes, 28 May 1902. Karl Krattner signed the letter which he ended by expressing hope that they “will find a time, where man can find himself on purely artistic ground without consideration of other matters.” For information on the Union of German Visual Artists in Bohemia, see Krattner, Karl, "Die Deutschböhmen in RudoWinum" Deutsche Arbeit 2 (1903): 625–30.Google Scholar From 15 November 1902 until 31 January 1903 this group held an exhibition in Vienna, feeling that such a show was impossible in Prague or elsewhere in Bohemia due to the nationality conflict. See Krattner, Karl, “Die Wiener Ausstellung deutscher Künstler aus Böhmen,” Deutsche Arbeit 2 (1903): 112–14.Google Scholar

85 The itinerary reprinted in Korbelová, Helena, “Rodinova pra!ská vystavá a jeho návštěva v Praze,” Documenta Pragensia 2 (1981): 110–13Google Scholar was the official planned itinerary, but it was not strictly followed. For his actual activities, see “Rodin in Praze,” Národní listy, 31 May 1902 and 1 June 1902; and “Meister Rodin in Prag,” Politik, 31 May 1902 and l j une 1902.

86 “Rodin v Praze,” Národní listy, 31 May 1902, 3.

87 “Meister Rodin in Prague,” Politik, 1 June 1902; and “Rodin in Praze,” Národní listy, 1 June 1902.

88 The Circle of Czech Writers held the late May celebration to raise money for a monument in Zeyer's honor (which still stands in a grotto near the Belvedere). See “Zeyerova slavnost (Den prvni),” Národní listy, 1 June 1902.

89 Ibid., 2; and Pynsent, Julius Zeyer, 119.

90 See Pynsent, Robert B., “Czech Decadence” in CornisPope, Marcel and Neubauer, John, eds., History of the Literary Cultures of East-Central Europe: Junctures and Disjunctures in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries (Amsterdam, 2004), 348–63.Google Scholar

91 The uncropped version of this photo is in Pocta Rodinova. It is often reproduced with some women, including one wearing a folk dress, cut out (this happens in Mašín, Vzpomínky, 95).

92 Lenderová, Zdenka Braunerová, 78. Braunerová's sister, Anna, was married to the French author and state administrator, Émile Bourges. Through him, Rodin and Braunerová became reacquainted when Rodin traveled to Prague (they had first met in France in 1898).

93 How and when “they managed to spend several private occasions” is something wondered about in Lenderová, Zdenka Braunerová, 155.

94 Returning home after several years in Paris, Braunerová asserted, “What I want to say in art, I can only express in my homeland.” Braunerová, Zdenka, “Neznamé dopisy: Dopis Zdenky Braunerové Dr. F. X.Jiříkovi z 9. VII. 1899,” Výtvarné umění (1955): 37–38.Google Scholar See also Zdenka Braunerova, “Skutky Konyášovy: Příspěvek k akci o zachování starobylého rázu Prahy,” Rozhledyb (1896): 483–90.

95 Mašín, Vzpomínky, 101.

96 For background information on this custom and a related photograph from the 1895 Czecho-Slavic Ethnographic Exhibition in Prague, see Sayer, The Coast of Bohemia,124–26.

97 Hodonín was not yet famous as the birthplace of Tomáš G. Masaryk, the first president of independent Czechoslovakia and the person most credited with the new state's creation in 1918.

98 Uprka lived in a region of Moravia known as Moravian Slovakia (Slovácko), where there was significant poverty. Braunerová discussed this poverty in an 1899 letter to Šalda. See “Vá!ený příteli,” 28 May 1899, in Vladimýr Hellmuth-Brauner, ed., Přátelství z konce století: Vzájemná korespondence F. X. Šaldy se Zdenkou Braunerovou (Prague, 1939), 108–10.

99 Mašín, Vzpomínky 103–5.

100 Korbelová, “Rodinova pra!ská výstava,” 114–15.

101 “Die Rodin-Ausstellung in Prag,” Oesterreichs Illustrierte Zeilung, 16 August 1902. Found in AMRodin, folder “4enne Exposition.” Rodin paid a service to collect articles related to his work, including those reporting on the Prague exhibition.

102 No title, Nuova antologia, June 1902. Found in AMRodin, folder “4enne Exposition.”

103 D.S.M., “Rodin in Prague,” Saturday Review (1902): 628–30. This review was not included in the Archive of the Musée Rodin.

104 “Auguste Rodin,” Mail and Express (New York), December 1902. Found in AM-Rodin, folder “4enne Exposition.”

105 “Prague,” Le Studio (1902). Found in AMRodin, folder “4enne Exposition.”

106 “Prague,” Studio (1902): 141–43. Found in AMRodin, folder “4enne Exposition.” My examination of articles related to Czech art in Studio, the leading British decorative artsjournal, revealed limited recognition among its writers of Czech artistic singularity and progress. A 1903 article wrote, “Prague has never rushed with open arms to meet modern taste half-way; it would be more accurate to regard it as reactionary, and rarely ready to welcome anything new.” The article discussed Kotera as an exception to this tendency but never called him a Czech. See “Prague,” Studio (1903): 172. A 1904 review with photos of a Mánes exhibition of its members' works called all the artists discussed “Bohemians” never using the word Czech (the artists discussed included Svabinsky, Uprka, and Sucharda, the last of whom was praised for his originality). See “Prague,” Studio (1904): 83. A 1905 review of Czech art on display at the 1904 World's Fair in St. Louis recognized it as “Czech art in Bohemia.” See “Vienna,” Studio (1905): 253. Later articles indicate some continued confusion.

107 “AusBöhmen, ”Schwábisher Merkur, 5 June 1902; and Dresdner Anzeigner, 7 June 1902. Found in AM Rodin, folder “4enne Exposition.” The title of the last article had been cutoff.

108 Richard Muther, “Rodin in Prag,” Die Zeit; translated and reprinted as Richard Muther, “Rodin v Praze,” Čos: Organ české strany lidové, 12 June 1902. Shortly after the Rodin exhibition, Muther hired Rainer Maria Rilke, a German native of Prague, to write a book on Rodin for his Die Kunst series. The book was published in 1903; later, in 1905 and 1906, Rilke worked as Rodin's secretary. See Rainer Maria Rilke, Rodin (Salt Lake City, 1979).

109 Between 1902 and 1910 the Mánes Association held thirty exhibitions (including the Rodin show). Two were devoted to German art (including a 1903 show of work from Worpswede and a 1908 show devoted to Ludwig von Hofmann). Prahl and Byd!ovská, Freie Richtungen, 188. For a new article on the Bourdelle exhibition, see Fabelová, Karolína, “Bourdelle á Prague en 1909 et son rapport aux artistes tchéques et á Auguste Rodin,” Umění 57 (2009): 364–84.Google Scholar

110 Historians Zbyněk Zeman and Antonín Klimek wrote that in 1915 when Masaryk and Benes set about securing Czechoslovakia's creation, “They represented a nation virtually unknown to the foreign ministries in Europe, and totally unknown to the public in the West.” See Zeman, Zbynek and Klimek, Antonin, The Life of Edvard Benes, 1884–1948: Czechoslovakia in Peace and War (Oxford, 1997), 21.CrossRefGoogle Scholar Milena Lenderová supports this view, writing, “Between the French people and the Czechs there were lively cultural relations, [but] these were, in the majority, the result of the private initiatives of artists, designers, and literati…. The images of ordinary French people about the Czech nation always remained somewhat confused, not always distinguishing Czechs from gypsies.” See Lenderová, Zdenka Braunerovd, 559.

111 Sawicki, “Rodin and the Prague Exhibition of 1902,” 194–95. Information on French critic Camille Mauclair's relations with Czechs can be found in Karolína Fabelová, “La 'fusion des artes' et le 'recherché de la modernite': L'introduction en Boheme d'un chapitre de la critique d'art francaise,” Revue des etudes slaves 74 (2002–3): 63–76.

112 Masaryk, Tomášs G., “Probléme des Petites Nations dans la Crise Européenne Actuelle,” La Nation Tchéque 1 (1915): 199–205.Google Scholar The journal's writers must have been optimistic about the war's end, because in February of 1916 they began advertising Prague's historic sites.

113 “Amitiés Tchéques,” La Nation Tchéque2 (1916): 109–10.

114 Wingfield provides a useful introduction to the Legionnaires in Flag Wars and Stone Saints, 182–87.

115 Studio reviewed the 1925 Czechoslovak Pavilion, saying “The participation of Czecho-Slovakia in the exhibition in a matter of no small importance,… Taken as a whole, the work sent in by the Republic has a strongly marked character of its own and evinces a bold attempt to evolve a modern art from the traditions of the country.” It also wrongly called Josef Gočár “M. Gočár” and inaccurately attributed glasswork to Braunerová (who helped to install the 1925 pavilion). See Mourey, Gabriel, “The Paris International Exhibition, 1925. Second Article: The Czecho-Slovakian Pavilion,” Studio (1925): 98–102.Google Scholar

116 Janák, Pavel, “K výstavé v Paří!i,” Vřtvarná prdce 4 (1925): 37.Google Scholar

117 Czechoslovakia participated in numerous international exhibitions before and after World War II, receiving prestigious recognition for their pavilions and displays. For example, in the 1928 Milan Industrial Exhibition, Kamil Roškot's pavilion received a gold medal, and in the 1937 Paris World's Fair, Jaromýr Krejcar's design won a gold prize. At the 1958 World's Fair in Brussels, the Czechoslovak Pavilion was judged the best pavilion. On the latter exhibition, see Cathleen M. Giustino, “No Red Flags? Socialist Industrial Design and the Czechoslovak Pavilion at EXPO '58” (unpublished paper, 2010).