The fate of the small, unobtrusive, most probably 18th century, house in the suburb of Litomyšl is inseparably connected with the figure of Josef Portman who was born in 1893 to Josef Portman, a verger at the parish church and later a typographer, and his wife Zenonia. Josef Portman, a teacher by education, worked as a town clerk and bookkeeper, and had an almost obsessive love of the printing trade, literature and, especially, Symbolist and Decadent art. In 1993, Portman became acquainted with Josef Váchal's wood engravings, entered into correspondence with him and, in 1920, expressed his desire for Váchal to decorate the furniture and walls of the interior of his house with his paintings. Váchal accepted and created the unique wall paintings which we can see today. However, their preservation was a long and torturous road.
After Josef Portman died in 1968, the family did not have enough money to repair the badly damaged paintings. In 1975, the house was hit by lightening, and the resulting fire and attempts at extinguishing it caused even greater devastation. In 1976, the building was listed as a cultural monument. In the following years, there was a danger of the paintings being sold privately and transferred to Prague. Fortunately, this never happened as, in 1987, Portman's house was bought by the National Gallery which entrusted its care into the hands of the painter Bohdan Kopecký. The gallery also however, had no money for repairs to the paintings. Hopes for an improvement in the fate of the house where raised in 1991 when it passed into the ownership of Ladislav Horáček, owner of the Paseka publishing house, who commenced its reconstruction and restoration. This he carried out, as accurately as possible, in cooperate with restorers Jiří Látal, Jaroslav, Jan Turský, Vendula Látalová and Jana Krotká, technologist Ladislav Kryl and architect Mikuláš Hulec. The house was opened to the public on the 26th of June 1993 as the Portmoneum – Museum of Josef Váchal, thus bringing to a conclusion the efforts of two friends – Josef Portman, whose wish it was to create a “Váchaleum”, a museum of Josef Váchal's work, and the wish of the artist himself, who, in 1924, captured his vision of a Portmoneum in his book: Krvavý román (Bloody Novel): “If we want to see something really beautiful, we must go along to the suburbs and visit the Portmoneum. The Portmoneum is similar to Faust House in Prague.”
Váchal's wall paintings, located in two rooms at the rear of the house facing out into the garden, are of an extremely complicated structure. This, at first glance incongruous mixture of motifs and painting styles, possesses its own inner logic, which relies on the viewer's knowledge of Váchal's attitude to life and his opinions on art. The wall paintings are interspersed with dozens of references to, and direct quotations from, other, especially literary, works of art. There are references to bloodthirsty folk novels of the 19th century and the Hindu Bhagavad Gita, but also classic themes of Christian iconography. Alongside traditional oil paintings depicting the landscape of the River Soči valley in the Julian Alps, where Váchal experienced the horrors of the World War, we can find ornamental compositions of tropical forests with wild animals and birds and, above all, hundreds of demons, goblins and ghosts. The paintings continuously waver between irony, humour and the profound experience of the spirituality of the time. In his brightly-coloured paintings, Váchal reacts characteristically to contemporary art styles – Cubism, Symbolism, Expressionism and Futurism.
Váchal created his wall paintings in oil and tempera on old plasters, which proved to be an unsuitable base layer, resulting in their relatively rapid disintegration. The most demanding and riskiest process was chosen for the restoration during the 1990s. This involved removing the paintings, reinforcing them and reattaching them to new plaster. The missing sections of the paintings were reconstructed according to photographs of the period. After the restoration worked was completed, the interior was furnished with furniture carved and finished in polychrome by Váchal himself.
In 2016, the house was bought by the Pardubice Regional Government after the death of Ladislav Horáček, who was primarily responsible for the reconstruction and subsequent running of the museum. The Regional Museum in Litomyšl runs the museum along with a permanent exhibition now, and holds short-term exhibitions relating to personalities and events intertwined with this unique monument.
ZT
