Otto Urban

Since 1993, Otto M. Urban has been teaching courses on Modern Czech Art for numerous international university programs in Prague, including New York University, American University, CIEE, and ECES. 

Urban studied art history and aesthetics at Charles University from 1985-1990; in 2000, he earned his Ph.D. in the same field. From 1994 to 1998, he taught art history at Charles University, and subsequently worked as a researcher at the Institute of Art History in Prague. He has also taught courses on art history in the U.S.: at the University of Texas at Austin in 1999, 2001, 2003 and 2005, at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago in 2007 (he has cooperated with the SAIC since 2001).

Since 1990, he has focused his studies on Central European symbolism, specifically the question of decadence. He was curator of a number of exhibitions (including František Kobliha in 1990, Moderní revue in 1995,and Karel Hlaváček in 1998, 2003). He also co-curated exhibitions of Alfred Kubin (2003) and Arnold Schönberg (2004). His recent project (2007) was a major exhibition In Morbid Colours, Art and the Idea of Decadence in the Bohemian Lands, 1880 – 1914.

Urban's articles about Decadence and Symbolism have been published in magazines in the Czech Republic and abroad and his texts have been included in a number of anthologies and publications. He published his first monograph on Karel Hlaváček (2002), one of the main figures of Czech Decadence. His latest book is In Morbid Colours, Art and the Idea of Decadence in the Bohemian Lands, 1880 – 1914 (2007, English version). He is currently working on a monograph about painter and graphic artist František Kobliha (2008) and on an exhibition and a book, Eroticism in Art in the Bohemian Lands (2011).