Petr Spielmann

Petr Spielmann was born on the 11th of October 1932. Spielmann's father came from a Czech-German family, his mother was Czech with Moravian roots, and before his birth, Petr's parents lived in Dresden. Upon the creation of the Weimar Republic, they were forced to return to Czechoslovakia - they settled down in Northern Bohemia, Petr was born in Ústí nad Labem. During World War II he was supposed to join a transport because of his second-degree mixed origin, but his mother saved him. He spent the end of the war with his relatives in the Moravian countryside. After the war the family moved to Prague. After graduating from grammar school, Petr Spielmann went to study the history of art at the Faculty of Arts of Masaryk University in Brno. He soon got in touch with the artistic community, especially at the House of Art. After completing his studies he began work at the Brno Municipal Museum, later switching to the National Gallery in Prague. In 1957 he married and started a family. Towards the end of the Sixties, he functioned as the union chairman of the National Gallery, and after the occupation he received an offer of employment at the Bochum Museum in Germany. He decided to move abroad with his wife and son. He was declared an emigrant in 1971. After the death of the curator of the Bochum Museum, Petr Lee, Spielmann became his successor. He led the Bochum Museum until 1997, buying over 1200 items into its collections from Czechoslovak artists, including emigrant artists. Since 1997 he has lived alternately in Bochum and in Brno. From 2004 to 2007 he was the dean of the Brno Faculty of Fine Arts.

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