About Us

A Institute of Art History ASCR, Husova 4, 110 00 Praha 1
E arthist@site.cas.cz, pstrossova.at.udu.cas.cz
T +420 221183502
F +420 222 221 654

The Institute of Art History (IAH) of the Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic (ASCR) is one of the public research workplaces (v. v. i.) associated in the Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic. Its aim is to carry out research in the fields of the history and theory of the visual arts, aesthetics, and architecture. Among its most important projects are the History of Czech Visual Art in several volumes, and the inventories of the Artistic Heritage of Bohemia, Moravia, Silesia, and Prague.

The staff of the Institute are the authors of many other publications, and organise or help to organise exhibition projects in the Czech Republic and abroad. Many of them are active at universities as teachers or as doctoral students. The Institute is involved in various Czech and international projects, and cooperates with many research institutes and experts both in the Czech Republic and elsewhere. It is a member of the international association RIHA (Research Institutes in the History of Art).

The specialist activity of the Institute is divided into five departments

Mediaeval Art
Early Modern Art
Art in the 19th to 21st Centuries
Art History Topography
Documentation

There are also several Centres working in the Institute: Studia Rudolphina (Research Centre for Visual Arts and Culture in the Age of Rudolf II), the Centre for Research in Baroque Ceiling Painting (member of the group of academic and university research centres the Research Group for Baroque Ceiling Painting in Central Europe), and the Research Centre for Epigraph and Sepulchre Studies.

The cycle of lectures Collegium Historiae Artium, which is organised by the Institute, has become a renowned specialist platform for lectures by Czech and international scholars.

The Institute publishes Umění / Art, the only internationally respected academic art history periodical in the Czech Republic, and Studia Rudolphina (the bulletin of the Research Centre for Visual Arts and Culture in the Age of Rudolph II), and is joint publisher of the magazine Estetika. Other specialist works are prepared for publication by the Institute's publishing house Artefactum.

Since 1971 the Institute has been working on a Czech Art History Bibliography. The work of the Institute also includes a public specialist library, a bibliography department, and a photo archive. The Institute administers extensive collections of prints, historical plans, photographs, and written sources.