October 24th – December 21st, 2025
UM Gallery, UMPRUM, Jan Palach Square 80, Prague 1
Opening: October 23, 2025, at 6 pm
The presence of international students at UMPRUM is not merely a privilege of the present day. Throughout its history, the school has been open to various forms of student exchange and mobility. Among the notable figures who studied here were the Núñez brothers from Chile. The current exhibition at the UM Gallery focuses primarily on Sergio Núñez, whose work remains less known, and presents posters, paintings, textiles, and photographs from his estate.
Sergio Núñez (1931–2002) studied at the Academy of Arts, Architecture, and Design in Prague (UMPRUM) in the late 1950s, attending the Studio of Ceramics and Porcelain of Otto Eckert and the Studio of Applied Painting of Alois Fišárek. After successfully graduating, he taught at the newly founded Tahrir College in Baghdad. Following the coup in Iraq, he returned to Prague, where he settled and worked for the International Union of Students, designing posters for the organization.
Guillermo Núñez (1930–2024) left Prague after a shorter period of study with Karel Svolinský. He later worked in New York before returning to Chile, where he became involved in the cultural policy of Salvador Allende’s government. After Allende’s death, he was imprisoned and forced to flee to Europe. Living in both its eastern and western parts, he continued to bear witness through his art to the crimes of Pinochet’s military regime.
While Guillermo Núñez became a celebrated figure in South American art, his brother Sergio fell into obscurity. The exhibition at UM Gallery, curated by Jan Wollner, seeks to restore his place in art history. “At the core of Sergio Núñez’s work—and of this exhibition—are his vividly colored, visually striking posters. Thematically, they engage with the political issues of education and emancipation in South America and other parts of the world, demonstrating the ongoing relevance of Núñez’s art in the context of global art history,”notes the curator. The visual works are accompanied by a selection of photographs intertwining the life stories of both brothers.
The exhibition at UM Gallery is accompanied by a critical catalogue, The Núñez Brothers: A Study in Global Art History, published by UMPRUM Press. The publication traces how the diverse work of the Núñez brothers evolved under the differing circumstances of socialist Czechoslovakia, republican Iraq, the dynamic New York art scene, and Chile under both Allende and Pinochet. It compares the brothers’ dramatic careers and highlights the moments where their paths intersected.
The entire project is one of the outcomes of the large-scale research initiative Sites of Creativity, funded by the Ministry of Culture of the Czech Republic through the NAKI III Programme for Applied Research in the Field of National and Cultural Identity. The research has been carried out over five years by the Department of Art Theory and History at UMPRUM.
The exhibition at UM Gallery, together with the accompanying publication, is part of the celebrations marking the 140th anniversary of UMPRUM’s founding. It brings to Czech audiences artists who have long remained unknown here, while symbolically returning them to the institution where they studied in the mid-20th century.
The project Sites of Creativity. Arts and Crafts Education: Constructing Identities, Rescuing Heritage, Designing the Future (DH23P03OVV061) is financially supported by the Ministry of Culture of the Czech Republic as part of the Program for the Applied Research of National and Cultural Identity (NAKI III) for the years 2023–2030.
