The earliest efforts to establish a municipal museum in Kroměříž occurred in the 1860s. However, they were not fulfilled at that time, not even later when a “National history association” was founded in Kroměříž, and not even in 1896 when a “Museum and library union” was established. The first tangible effort that really made a difference was an acquisition of a private collection, predominantly archaeological one, by the municipality from the bookprinter Jindřich Slovák – that was the end of the 1920s. At that time, the teacher and writer Jindřich Spáčil moved to Kroměříž and together with his associates he convinced the municipal council that it was essential to establish a museum.
The day of the constitution of the direct predecessor of today’s Kroměříž District Museum is associated with the establishing of a “Board of trustees of the Kroměříž Municipal Museum” on 5 February 1933. The museum building with exhibitions was first opened to the public on 4 March 1934. During the German occupation by it was closed down in November 1943.
After the war, the activities of the museum were restored, and the reopened museum joined the celebrations of the 100th anniversary of the Imperial Assembly in Kroměříž in an event called “100 years of Czech national life” by opening an exhibition about the history of the Kroměříž district from prehistory to the present day, and displaying its natural history collection.
After the end of that exhibition, in 1950 the museum moved to the Kroměříž chateau where it was based with all its collections and depositories until the 1980s. On 1 January 1954 the museum changed its name to a “District national history museum” and on 10 June 1956 it opened an archaeology-history exhibition on the ground floor of the chateau, titled “From prehistory to our day”.
Since 1961 the national history institute transformed to “Museum of art history in Kroměříž”, and in the same year it was entrusted with managing the Old Synagogue in Holešov. After the occupation of Czechoslovakia by some of the Warsaw Pact armies the conditions in the society tightened, the Museum of art history was dissolved, and some of the employees were dismissed. In 1970 a District Museum in Kroměříž was newly established.
From 1968 it was planned to place the museum into house No 38 on the main square in Kroměříž, the present seat of the Kroměříž District Museum. The aim was to get prepared for a celebration of 100th anniversary of Max Švabinský and have the front part of the building ready for displaying the painter’s works in 1973, which was successfully achieved. In 1976 a permanent exhibition and a Max Švabinský Memorial was opened on the first floor.
In 1975–1976 all the museum establishments of the then South Moravian Region were centralised, and in 1977 a consolidated museum network was established in the Kroměříž district under the name Muzeum Kroměřížska – Kroměříž District Museum. Some other sites were soon added to it: the windmills in Velké Těšany and in Rymice, the Chropyně chateau with its exhibitions, and the Municipal museum in Holešov as a remote branch of the Kroměříž District Museum.
In 1976 the museum acquired also the hind tract of the house and it was decided to transform it into an administrative and cultural facility of the Kroměříž District Museum. In the 1980s the building underwent full reconstruction and in 1988 it became the centre of the museum network of the Kroměříž district of the region. Then the 1989 revolution came with all the changes in the establishment and the society. It also brought an end to the short-lived exhibition on class struggles, anti-fascist resistance and building of socialism in the district, which was opened in spring 1987 on the second floor of the museum building. This was dismantled in 1990 and in February 1994 it got replaced with Nature and Man – exhibition on archaeology and natural history; after more than 26 years the present permanent exhibition Kroměříž in the course of history 1848–1948 took its place.
Well before the November 1989 events, the foundations for the current Gallery in the arcades were laid. In the 1990s the gallery was extended with the spaces of the adjacent house, and after some modifications it was opened on 23 September 1994. When the house was bought by a private proprietor and the rental contract was nearing its end in September 2017, the gallery closed down, the entrance to the next door house was bricked up and new exhibition spaces were developed parallel to the previous ones.
Gallery
