HOMESICK ANDERSWO: Pravoslav Sovak

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He was one of the most important printmakers of the present day, with global reach: Pravoslav Sovak. Born in 1926 in Vysoké Mýto in eastern Bohemia, the artist lived in Hergiswil from 1978 until his death in 2022. To mark his 100th birthday, the Nidwaldner Museum is dedicating a comprehensive exhibition to him. The focus is on works that reflect the homesickness he thought about throughout his life. A homesickness that began with the invasion of the Soviet army on 21 August 1968 in Prague, which the 42-year-old still «leaves» on the same day – in his own words. Switzerland grants him asylum in 1969, and in 1978 he builds a house with a studio in Hergiswil. From here, Sovak repeatedly sets off into the world, often to America. Fascinated by the nameless expanses of the Arizona deserts, by city views or the vertical building structures of New York’s skyscrapers, he creates timeless works about (empty) places of refuge, about imaginary spaces and places, blended with memories of Bohemia, past journeys and life in the Hergiswil house, garden and surroundings. Sovak never spoke loudly about homesickness or the loss of his homeland. It is his sensual, technically brilliant oeuvre that often reflects a deep longing for identity or belonging and lets us experience that home is always changeable and shapeable. In a single image, created over more than eight years, he states it in the title: Homesick. An unfulfilled longing for a place that gives you a home is unmistakable – a place that hovers promisingly close above the horizon yet seems to lie in unreachable distance. The art exhibition opens on Friday, 26 June 2026, at 18:30. Curation: Martina Kral