Spolupráce národopisců a výtvarných pracovníků v bývalém Ústředí lidové umělecké výroby

Center for Folk Art Production was established in 1945 as an organization intended to support the folk manufacturers, small craftsmen and small workshops. After the various reorganizations, which had been enforced by the social changes, the Center became an organization that covered this small manufacturing. Besides the production base, the Center for Folk Art Production had still two service sections - a network of its own shops and a development section. Ethnographers and trained artists worked in this department, and cooperated in formulation of the production program for the small manufacturers and workshops. The non-professional manufacturers perfectly mastered the production technique and smoothly manufactured traditional products for people around them. However, as soon as they had to sell their products in a different environment, the manufacturers did not know how to use their skills.he trained artists, who knew the trends in their branch, developed for the small producers new product designs. However, they needed further knowledge for this activity, so the ethnographers prepared for them documentation files of the study materials - photos from the terrain and the museums, motif and shape overviews. They served as an inspiration resource for the artists so they could develop new patterns. Those patterns were to have modern utilization, but in the same time they should have had a certain relationship to the traditions as well as some peculiarity and originality - all this expressed by the shape, technique, color or material. During the almost fifty-year existence of the Center for Folk Art Production elaborate theoretical and methodical procedures for taking up the old traditions were worked out. the practical results of those procedures were appreciated by experts of that time.