Galerie Klatovy / Klenová

The Klenová District Gallery was set up in 1963. A local painter, Vladimír Levora, was named its first director. The opening of the desolated castle and chateau to the public is one of his first achievements. The gallery started to build up its own collection. In the first years of the gallery's existence it mainly exhibited Czech art of the 19th century which it borrowed from the National Gallery and the West Bohemian Gallery in Plzeň.

In 1973 the gallery lost its independence and became part of the District Museum in Klatovy. Its exhibition and acquisitions policy was very limited; the gallery also lacked expert staff. Nevertheless, there were some encouraging achievements in the history of the gallery that are worth mentioning. One of them was the famed exhibition of Maxmilián Pirner in 1979, as well as the opening of the permanent collection of Vilma Vrbová-Kotrbová and her husband restorer František Kotrba in the villa bellow the castle. (1976, in 1989 it was closed down) It is also necessary to mention the substantial purchases of work by artists of the then middle generation (1987, 1988), which were unrivalled in both extent and quality in the Czechoslovakia of the time. This deed foreshadowed the gallery´s operations after 1989.