Adolf Loos Apartment and Gallery, founded in 2009, is the most successful Czech auction house and gallery specializing in the sale of high-quality paintings, sculptures, and design by important Czech and international artists. Since its establishment, the company has been engaged in publishing, editorial, and exhibition activities. It is the only auction house and gallery in the Czech Republic that provides a lifetime guarantee of authenticity of the artworks sold. It also provides consulting, authentication, restoration and framing services in close collaboration with renowned experts.
Adolf Loos Apartment and Gallery works closely with the National Museum of Qatar, the National Gallery in Prague, the Moravian Gallery in Brno, GVU Ostrava, the Leopold Museum and the Austrian National Gallery Belvedere in Vienna. In 2016, in collaboration with the copyright holder of Frantisek Kupka’s works, the French state company Adagp Pari, and the Austrian National Gallery Belvedere, Adolf Loos Apartment and Gallery published a complete and the only officially recognised catalogue raisonné of Kupka’s oil paintings. The company’s Director Vladimir Lekes is the main author of the catalogue raisonné.
Adolf Loos Apartment and Gallery has been organizing public art auctions since 2009. These exclusive auctions have become the most important auction events of the year in the Czech art market, with the vast majority of Czech auction records achieved here. The auction house holds an impressive success rate of 95% of lots sold on average. The company has achieved its outstanding track record due to the Director’s personal contacts with domestic and international restituents, collectors, private and state institutions, funds and museums. The company’s Director Vladimir Lekes is the only Czech art expert listed in the prestigious and world-renowned Guide international des experts et spécialites, published in France.
Adolf Loos Apartment and Gallery represents the owners of the most important art collections featuring Czech masters. In the past, the company was commissioned by George Waldes, the heir of the manufacturer Jindrich Waldes, to sell the most valuable family art possessions, both in the Czech Republic and in the United States. The company also handled private and public art sales on behalf of the families of the collectors Professor Vincenc Kramar, JUDr. Frantisek Cerovsky, Professor Vaclav Holzknecht, and artist estates including those of Emil Filla, Jan Zrzavy, Antonin Pelc, and others. Its international clients include a numebr of collectors from across the world, including Hugo Polak, Bernard Galateau, Guy Flandre, Emil Gillels, and others.
In the second half of 2021, the Adolf Loos Apartment and Gallery opened its new exclusive showroom in the iconic so-called Brussels Pavilion of EXPO 58. Gallery is in Letenske sady with breathtaking views of old and new Prague and the Vltava River. This exclusive building includes an observation deck, underneath which there are unique Renaissance Wine Cellars dating back to the mid-16th century.
The Adolf Loos Apartment and Gallery at Expo 58 ART is a modern art gallery environment showcasing hig-quality Czech and international art. The Expo 58 building is considered one of the most beautiful buildings in world architecture of the second half of the 20th century and has become a symbol of the international success of Czechoslovak art and architecture. The building, a UNESCO World Heritage Site, which received the main prize (Gold Star) and thirteen other awards at the World Expo 58 in Brussels, has reopened to the public as an exhibition and trade center of top-quality art and design.
In 2020, we facilitated the loan of the then most expensive Czech painting ever sold at an auction to the famous Leopold Museum in Vienna. Oskar Kokoschka's masterpiece Prague – View from the Monastery of the Knights of the Cross with a Red Star was auctioned at the Adolf Loos Apartment and Gallery in Prague in October 2019 for a record-breaking 78.5 million Czech crowns, becoming the most expensive artwork ever sold at the Czech auction market. In 2021, we sold the painting La Dame de Pique by the painter Toyen for a record 78.65 million Czech crowns. This exclusive painting was chosen by the prestigious National Museum of Qatar for its collections.
In June 2017, the town of Opocno, the birthplace of Frantisek Kupka, hosted the unveiling of a monument dedicated to the painter. The bust for the Opocno monument was donated by Vladimir Lekes, the owner of the Adolf Loos Apartment and Gallery, and George Waldes, the eldest son of the famous art collector, art patron and manufacturer Jindřich Waldes. Jindrich Waldes was also Frantisek Kupka's closest friend and only supporter. In September 2017, an identical monument was unveiled in the French town of Puteaux, which will symbolically link it with the town of Opocno. The town of Puteaux, where Frantisek Kupka spent most of his life and where he died, signed a partnership agreement with Opocno.
The company is based at Josefov Street in Prague 1 in the premises of a unique and so-called Hirsch Apartment, designed in 1927 by the founder of the world's modern architecture of the twentieth century Adolf Loos (1870-1933). The apartment was saved from destruction in 1988 by the Director of the company and restored at his own expense. In 2014, the apartment was included in the prestigious global network of architectural designs Iconic Houses. It now features several other unique works of design from other Loos properties, including the famous 1912 sofa set consisting of four chairs and a table with a marble top from Villa Rosenfeld. These chairs were once used by Sigmund Freud, who was related to the family, and other world’s great artists such as Gustav Klimt, Oskar Kokoschka, and Egon Schiele. There is also a clock from the Strasser villa, a wardrobe dating back to 1923 from the men's fashion store Leschka and Co., a smoking set, one of the first designs for a glass set by the Lobmeyr company (made for the architect Paul Engelmann) and two Knieschwimmer armchairs (F.O. Schmidt from 1910 and UP Werke from 1932). This collection is undoubtedly one of the most important ones of Loos’s works in the world. Professor Burkhardt Rukschcio, the world's renowned expert on the work of Adolf Loos, has written a book about this architectural gem.
The original Loos apartment was presented by our company with great success during the Adolf Loos Season at the prestigious Royal Institute of British Architects in London, as well as at the Austrian National Gallery Belvedere and the Pinacotheque de Paris. Several articles have been published very positively about our company’s work, for instance in The New York Times, The International Herald Tribune, Sunday Times, Independent, and Observer. In 2014, the apartment was included in the prestigious global network of architectural designs, Iconic Houses. The apartment was also recently published in the book 150 Houses You Need to Visit Before You Die by Thijs Demeulemeester and Jacinthe Gigou.
