Lidice Art Collection receives record donation from Turkish-British curator Hüma Kabakcı
The Lidice Art Collection is set to receive its largest donation to date, valued at over ten and a half million crowns. Last week, the Lidice Memorial signed an agreement with Turkish-British curator Hüma Kabakcı for 65 new works of art from around the world.
The artworks are being donated by Kabakcı on behalf of the Nahit & Hüma Kabakcı Collection, named after her and her late father, Nahit, who began building it in the late 1980s. Today, the collection includes more than 900 works.
The Lidice Memorial will receive 65 of them—mostly paintings—each personally selected by Kabakcı. She says she wanted to choose pieces that resonate with the legacy of Lidice and highlight artists not yet represented in the collection.
“My late father often emphasized Turkic-speaking countries, but there’s also a strong post-Soviet thread in the collection. I try not to focus too much on nationalities or nationalism, because history constantly shifts through movement and exchange.”
What connects them, she says, is partly the language and geography they share, but also the themes of their work:
“The themes of the artworks include memory, nostalgia, and post-war reflection, but also touches of humour. I hope that when we hold the exhibition next year, people will engage with the works, interpret them freely, and create new dialogues. It shouldn’t be rigid.”
Kabakcı explains that the selected works differ not only in style and subject matter but also in scale. Some are more intimate, smaller pieces, while others are much larger.
“For instance, there is an artist from Sarajevo who created objects of reminiscence of the war. They’re displayed in boxes, so I included those works along with his writings. I also selected more contemporary artists that I thought should be represented but perhaps weren’t before.”
Kabakcı says she wanted the artworks not to remain in a private archive but to be accessible to the general public. Asked why she chose Lidice, she points to the town’s history and to her own sense of belonging.
“I don’t feel entirely Turkish, but I don’t feel fully British either. Belonging has always been a kind of question mark for me, though not in a troubling way.
“In the context of how my father collected regionally—for example, in the Balkans—and even included one or two Czech artists who are already in Lidice, it all connected naturally. I didn’t select those already represented, but the choice still felt right.
“If I could have donated to a state museum in Turkey first, I would have. But when I saw how Lidice embraced the idea as a great opportunity and welcomed me so warmly, it really moved me.”
Most of the donated works are still in Turkey and are expected to arrive in Lidice around the turn of the year, though the exact date has yet to be confirmed.
With Kabakcı’s donation, the Lidice Art Collection now contains more than 600 works. Around 400 of them are stored in the depository, while the rest are either on display or on loan.
Founded in the 1960s by British doctor and politician Barnett Stross, the Lidice Art Collection is managed today by the Lidice Memorial under the Ministry of Culture.
The collection follows a principle of solidarity, accepting only donated works and never purchasing art. Among its most valuable pieces is Uncle Rudy by German painter Gerhard Richter.
