Jiří Šťastný, a self-taught artist and naturalized Prague resident, amused us with this statement. He is a skilled landscape painter of South Bohemia, but more importantly, he is a successful naive portraitist of the romantic Lesser Town (Malá Strana), nestled in the shadow of the legendary Charles Bridge. Born in Havlíčkův Brod, he has lived and worked in our capital city since the end of the 1990s. He enjoys using not only oil paints on canvas and mixed techniques, but primarily oil painting, applying layers from the darkest to the lightest tones.
Šťastný has had numerous successful exhibitions, and since 2003, he has run a small gallery at Míšeňská Street 7, where visitors are captivated by his paintings and romantic scenes of both domestic and foreign life as they stop on the sidewalk in front of its window display. Míšeňská Street is home to many famous residents. First and foremost, we must mention Eduard Vojen, but also families like the Štěpánek family, or the world-renowned Jarmila Mařanová, a portraitist of Kafka, as well as a painter and illustrator of his works and his Jewish Prague. Jiří Šťastný also arrived here during the millennium celebrations and settled here with his artistic sanctuary. He originally ran his gallery for eleven years at Míšeňská 10, near the aforementioned Štěpánek family, before moving to house number 7, where he is still located.
His path to painting did not involve studying at any of the art schools, but rather relied on his own diligence with a palette in hand, as well as visits to galleries and exhibitions, where he tried to figure out how it was done. However, let's not play with words. The truth is that after the political changes and the arrival of the new century, many successful painters from the former Soviet Union moved to Prague and established themselves there. Jiří Šťastný befriended several of them. These masters of their craft quickly recognized his talent and helped him master various painting techniques in practice. And because Jiří Šťastný was a diligent student, the results were not long in coming. Let's mention at least the Russian and Ukrainian academic painters Vladimir Kasim or Peter Kijanitsu, or Roman Zuzuk, Vladimir Bogdanov, or Taras Plishche.
Neighborhood Relations
Lesser Town is a unique part of historic Prague. People live here in a way that you might call "neighborly," they see into each other's lives, and nothing escapes them. It's like the old days of community associations. This cannot be affected by tourism either. Neighbors still greet each other here, and they are more interested in who does what and for how much, than just superficial things. They even help each other when needed. The painter Jiří Šťastný quickly fit into their ranks, although he was a bit of an outsider. And because, due to the small space of the gallery, he often paints on the sidewalk, the neighbors enjoyed watching his works in progress. At the pub across the street, regulars who were very fond of Šťastný's naive art agreed to order a painting of their hometown from the establishment – including portraits of themselves. In short, the commission was for three dozen figures on Míšeňská Street, and the painter had to work with a magnifying glass and process the portraits from ID card photos! It can be said that it was an extraordinary commission, which Jiří Šťastný completed in six months of meticulous work, and today his large-scale painting adorns the pub in the restaurant "U bílé kuželky" across from house number seven with Šťastný's gallery. And nothing diminishes its magnificence, except that if we want to take a good look at the faces of specific people, we have to ask the waiter for a magnifying glass.
World Ice Hockey Championship
```This event took place in Prague in 2024. Petr Nedvěd, the famous Czech-Canadian hockey player who lives in Malá Strana, asked Jiří Štastný to paint a family portrait shortly before the championship. The commission required the painter to depict not only the hockey player with his young daughter, but also their two dogs and his brother Jarda. And this was right next to the Lokál restaurant, because Petr likes it there and lives just around the corner. Štastný painted the picture and had it framed in gold as a reminder of the famous victory at the world ice hockey championship held in Prague. The painter handed the painting to Nedvěd about a week after the end of the championship. He happily shared a personal memory with us:
“It was a great time – a win after so many years, and right here at home! Because Petr was at the championship as the general manager of the Czech team, I added a gold medal to his character's white shirt with his permission, which was an idea from his brother Jarda.”
Prints of this painting are still sold today, and buyers often request original signatures from Nedvěd and Štastný. In addition, various images filled with optimism about old Prague are offered here, including a period tram on Charles Bridge, Prague Castle, the romantic Kampa island, and other attractive places in our city of a hundred spires. Both Jiří Štastný, the painter, and his Russian-speaking friends, with whom he is constantly in touch and who enjoy reminiscing about their early years in business, when they painted and sold together on Charles Bridge, where it is almost impossible to walk today due to the ever-increasing tourist traffic.
As we have already mentioned, Jiří Štastný's naive paintings are created with love for our city. His Prague corners, full of charming details, are more than just a pleasant souvenir and a beautiful memory of visiting Prague, and it doesn't matter whether the artist is concerned with perspective or not. It was amusing to hear the sentence that greeted us in his unique gallery recently. Could Jiří Štastný really not paint? Let us conclude by giving the floor to an expert on his work, who accompanied the catalog for one of his many exhibitions outside Prague.
Quote:
Building on the tradition of naive painting in Prague, Jiří Štastný works with loving detail, deliberately suppressed perspective, and storytelling in the image. His Malá Strana is not photographically accurate. It is, so to speak, experienced, and that is its charm and authenticity!
Ivan Černý. Photo archive