A large exhibition of artwork by a Czech painter from the late 19th and early 20th centuries is on display in eastern Iowa, including one painting with a very storied history.
Stefanie Kohn, curator of the National Czech & Slovak Museum & Library in Cedar Rapids, says the untitled work from around 1917 by Joža Uprka details what’s known as kroj (pronounced CROY), a Moravian folk dress worn during the religious pilgrimage of St. Anthony’s.
“Kind of in the foreground is a young woman in Moravian kroj, kind of sitting on the grass, and then behind her, you can see the suggestion of hundreds of people also wearing folk dress,” Kohn says. “Many of his paintings of St. Anthony’s look like this. They’re very similar, mostly because people are wearing the same folk dress because they’re from a certain part of Moravia that he’s painting.”…