About us

We seek to create visually appealing events, exhibitions
and graphic works and enjoy working with like-minded people.
Each of our projects is unique and we possess
the experience and know-how to produce an exciting
and rewarding end result that will exceed your expectations.

The Praga Mystica name was inspired by an eponymous treatise by the Hussite priest Jan Bechyňka, published at the beginning of the 16th century. The detailed description of Prague was created sometime between 1503 and 1507 during the time of the Czech king Ladislaus Jagiellon. The text harmoniously intersperses documentary, allegorical and mystical elements within its pages. Similarly to his contemporary, the Dutch painter Hieronymus (aka Jheronimus) Bosch, Bechyňka was a critical observer, who penetrated beneath the surface in the search for hidden meanings.

What we offer

• Complete exhibition projects
  - From the original conception, through art direction, up to the final production and installation.
  - We give preference to unusual and stylish artistic-architectural projects and to
    framing subjects within a wider context in an engaging yet entertaining manner.

• Creation of booklets and books
  - From texts and photographs, through graphic design and layout, to printing and delivery.

• Lectures and seminars
  - Art, history and psychology, and also specialist subjects such as tarot cards and their symbolism.

• Unconventional social and educational events
  - Including wine-tasting, history from a different perspective etc.

Who we are

Bohumil Vurm and Zuzana Foffová are writers, publishers, authors and exhibition organisers. Their portfolio also includes organising various non-traditional social and wine tasting events. The couple has authored and published books on history, tarot, regions of the Czech Republic and viti- and viniculture. They are members of the International Organization of Wine Journalists and Writers (FIJEV) headquartered in Paris.

During the 1990s, Bohumil Vurm became the first person in the Czech Republic to lecture on tarot card reading. His long-term interests include European history, in particular the work of Dutch painter Hieronymus Bosch. He gives lectures for the general public as well as at schools and universities, both in the Czech Republic and abroad. His lecture “Hieronymus Bosch and the Symbolism of Tarot Cards” was included in a book entitled Hieronymus Bosch – His Sources published on the occasion of the Second International Jheronimus Bosch Conference, which took place in the Jheronimus Bosch Art Center in the Netherlands in 2010.
In 1995, he authored the first Czech encyclopaedia of tarot. His popular trilogy The Secret History of Europe was also published in Hungary. A Hungarian edition of the book The Story of Templars (Z. Foffová as co-author) was published in 2013. Vurm served as the author or co-author of texts accompanying the exhibitions “Praga Mystica”, “Beauties and Secrets of the Czech Republic”, “Vivat Comenius”, “Lords of Rožmital” and “Wine throughout the Ages”. He serves as a chairman of the Hieronymus Foundation, a non-profit organisation devoted to the popularization of the legacy of the Netherlandish painter Hieronymus Bosch.

Zuzana Foffová is a writer and photographer. In recent years, she has created graphic designs for countless books, booklets and posters and served as art director for numerous exhibitions. She edited and co-authored the two-volume book The New Encyclopaedia of Czech and Moravian Wine. In 2004 she compiled Ten Rules for Choosing the Right Wine and Ten Rules of Proper Wine Tasting. Foffová managed the graphic design of the travelling exhibition “Beauties and Secrets of the Czech Republic” created for the Czech Foreign Ministry, and the “Vivat Comenius” exhibition about the life and work of Czech scholar Jan Amos Comenius in Naarden, Holland. She contributed to the art design of a replica gothic astronomical clock created for the Jheronimus Bosch Art Center in the Netherlands. She also managed the architectural and art design of the “Lords of Rožmital” and “Jakub Jan Ryba” exhibitions in Podbrdské Museum in Rožmitál pod Třemšínem. Foffová managed the conception and art design, as well as co-authoring the accompanying texts, of the exhibition “Wine throughout the Ages” held at the Mikulov Chateau, including its interactive and game-play components.

Publishing achievements

Bohumil Vurm and Zuzana Foffová wrote, edited and published two first Czech encyclopaedias on tarot and wine - The Encyclopaedia of Tarot in 1995 and The Encyclopaedia of Czech and Moravian Wine in 1997.

This was followed in 2005 by the first volume of a wine encyclopaedia entitled The New Encyclopaedia of Czech and Moravian Wine. The book won the “Monographies of a Descriptive Nature” category in the 2006 Paris-held International Organization of Vine and Wine (OIV) competition. This represented the first award of its kind for a book from the Czech Republic.

Exhibition achievements

Zuzana Foffová and Bohumil Vurm have introduced a new type of interactive exhibition experience to the Czech Republic. In the exhibitions that they have produced, visitors are encouraged to touch, play, and look for hidden information - and to have a truly personal experience.

They produced the very first exhibition on the leading Bohemian medieval dynasty of Rožmital and co-produced the very first exhibition on the life and work of famous Baroque composer Jakub Jan Ryba, held in the Podbrdské Museum in Rožmitál pod Třemšínem. In 2010 the exhibitions were awarded the “Museum Event of the Year” award. They also produced the first unique permanent wine exhibition in the Czech Republic entitled “Wine throughout the Ages” at the Mikulov Chateau, which opened in 2012.

Hieronymus Foundation

Zuzana Foffová and Bohumil Vurm are members of the Hieronymus Foundation, which promotes the work of Hieronymus Bosch. In 1997, the foundation initiated a restoration of Bosch´s most important triptych, The Garden of Earthly Delights, part of the collection of the Museo del Prado in Madrid. The foundation also initiated a 2001 Hieronymus Bosch exhibition that took place in Rotterdam during that city’s tenure as the European Capital of Culture.

Since 2005, the foundation has helped to create and continuously expand the Jheronimus Bosch Art Center in the painter’s native town of ´s-Hertogenbosch in Holland. Recently, the couple conceived and supervised the creation of an eleven-metre-high functional replica of a gothic astronomical clock for the centre.