Jindrich Styrsky - I Heard the Secrets in a Kiss

The Seventh Chant

by Vitezslav Nezval (1924)

I heard the secrets in a kiss
the words around it circling like a line of colored butterflies
saw thousands of bacteria
in a sick man's body
& every one of them looked like a spiky chestnut
like a cosmos making war
with a skin of scaly armor

I saw a human break free from his dying comrades
in the pit of history that has no bottom

Styrsky and Toyen, 1931

Jindrich Styrsky (1899-1942) was born in Dolni Cermná, a small town in Bohemia. The early death of his sister, in 1905, greatly affected his later life and artistic creation. He studied at the Prague Academy of Fine Arts. In 1922, Styrsky met Mary Cermínovou (1902-1980), who later started using the pseudonym Toyen (I have written about her earlier here). In 1923, Styrski joined Devetsil , an association of Czech avant-garde artists founded in Prague three years earlier, and participated in their group exhibitions. 

Jindrich Styrsky, Self-Love, 1934

Styrski and Toyen moved to Paris in 1925 where they lived lived and worked together for three years. In 1928, Styrsky became director of Devetsil's drama wing, the Liberated Theater, where he started his collaboration with the writer Vitezslav Nezval. In 1934, Styrsky, Toyen, Karel Teige, and Jindrich Heisler were the founding membes of the Czech Surrealist Group in Prague, which cooperated closely with André Breton's group in Paris. In 1935, invited by the French Surrealists, Styrsky went back to Paris. There, he fell seriously ill, probably suffering from the same bad heart condition as his sister. From this stay Styrsky would only temporarily recover.

Jindrich Styrsky, Untitled, from the series The Movable Cabinet, 1934 

At the beginning of the thirties, Styrsky concentrated on the theme of eroticism. Between1930 and 1933 he edited a private publication for subscribers, Erotická Revue (The Erotic Revue), with illustrations by a wide range of well-known Czech artists. Toyen, for whom the eroticisation of the world was a life-long theme, was one of the most uninhibited. She also contributed to the erotic Edice 69 (Edition 69), which Styrsky founded in 1931. It started off with Nezval's Sexuální Nocturno (Sexual Nocturne), supplemented by Styrsky's own collages.

Jindrich Styrsky, Sexual Nocturne, 1931

Edition 69 consisted of six volumes of erotic literature and illustration that followed the path marked out by Louis Aragon's Irene's Cunt and Georges Bataille's Story of the Eye. Including the first Czech translation of Sade's Justine (illustrated by Toyen), three volumes were from contemporary Czech avant-garde artists, and these were all illustrated by Styrsky himself. Because of the censorship laws Styrsky encountered with his illustrations for the first Czech publication of Lautréamont's Maldoror, the Edition 69 series was not for sale in regular retail outlets, nor was it made available to libraries. The books were exclusively for subscribers, and the original print runs numbered no more than 200.

Jindrich Styrsky, The Statue of Liberty, 1934

Influenced by Max Ernst's collage-novels, and Andre Masson's illustrations for both Aragon's and Bataille's volumes, Styrsky's Edition 69 rank among the most important of Surrealist works, representing a sustained attempt by the interwar Czech avant-garde to investigate the taboos of bourgeois culture. Edition 69 culminated with the poetic text of Styrsky's Emily Comes to Me in a Dream, accompanied by his photo-montages and a psychoanalytic interpretation by Bohuslav Brouk. By that time, dreams had already become an important source of inspiration for Styrsky.

Jindrich Styrsky, Majakowsky's Jacket, 1939

The cycle Koreny (Roots) dominated the paintings that Styrsky included in the first exhibition of the Czech Surrealist Group in 1935. The provocative erotic connotations referred back to dreams recorded in the twenties, as for example Dream of the Marten (1925):

From the top of the palm above me I suddenly heard a melody that reminded me of an old ditty. When I looked to see who was singing it, I saw a giant orangutan playing a fiddle. He had a ruby red box with an odd handle in the shape of a child’s hand hanging from a strap. On the branch of a tree standing near the palm sat a large horse, its head erect as if an illustration in an old book on natural history, as if fascinated by the singing. It had been flayed, and the skin and hairs on its neck gave way to raw meat, which was larded with bacon fat like a hare ready for roasting. 

 Jindrich Styrsky, Marriage, 1934

While Toyen concentrated mainly on paintings, Styrsky also focused intensively on photographs. In these, inspired by Atget, he wanted to expose the concrete irrationality of the most ordinary surroundings. He also produced a large number of collages, in which he combined psychoanalysis with Gestalt psychology. The set of collages, Stehovací Kabinet (Moving Cabinet), from 1934-35, treated variations on the theme of sentimentality and cruelty, and ironised the meaning of banal kitsch reproductions.

Jindrich Styski, Frogman, 1934

The activity of the Prague surrealists was concentrated around exhibitions (1935 and 1938) and debates. At their invitation, André Breton, his wife Jacqueline and Paul Eluard came to Czechoslovakia in the spring of 1935. According to Breton, they were given a triumphal welcome. The same year, Edmund Husserl delivered key lectures about the Crisis of  European Sciences in Prague, and Rudolf Carnap worked at the Prague German University. Thus, disparate intellectual currents crossed in Prague in 1935 - surrealism, phenomenology, logical positivism and structuralism - which at that time were united by the attempt to diagnose the contemporary state of crisis. 

 Jindrich Styrsky, The Trauma of Birth, 1936

Breton urged Styrsky to investigate "objective surreality". This was confirmed by Styyrsky's monumental painting The Trauma of Birth (above), which he described as a panel of objects, which create an object-entity, which is in itself a painting. Styrsky drew on his own existential experience during his stay in Paris in 1935, when, in the grip of a serious illness, he hovered between life and death. The title refers to the popular book by the psychoanalyst Otto Rank, The Trauma of Birth, (1924). Rank was also popular among the Parisian surrealists and influenced Breton and Eluard's book The Immaculate Conception as well as Max Ernst's cycle La Femme 100 Têtes. 

Jindrich Styrsky, The Portable Cabinet, 1934

During the German occupation of Czechoslovakia, Styrsky's group continued to function illegally, until his death in March 1942. Surrealism greatly expanded in Czechoslovakia during the war, when it was banned. In the stifling atmosphere of the German Protectorate, it represented, for the young generation, an alluring challenge to engage in free creative thought. 

 Jindrich Styski, German Cardinal, 1941

Calypsospots curates a magnificent collection of Czech avantgarde art on Flickr. You can see many more of Styrsky's works there.

The Nudes of Drtikol

 František Drtikol, The Soul, 1930

František Drtikol (1883-1961) was born in the mining town of Příbram, Bohemia. His father was the owner of a grocery store. He spent his childhood in his hometown and showed an early attraction for drawing and painting. František spent more time drawing and reading novels than working for the school. In 1898, Drtikol, a mediocre student, left school. He wanted to start a career as a painter but his father demanded an apprenticeship with Antonin Mattas, the local photographer, saying that painting does not provide sufficient security. During his three years as an apprentice and assistant to his master, Drtikol gained a solid base of professional practice.

 František Drtikol, Dancers, 1930

In 1901, Drtikol moved to Munich where he enrolled at the Lehr- und für Versuchanstalt für Photographie, opened a year earlier. Taking courses in physics, chemistry, optics and design, he distinguished himself quickly and was regarded the best student in his class. After his studies, in 1903 and 1904, Drtikol worked as an assistant in various photographic studios in Karlsruhe, Chur, and Prague. From 1904 to 1907, Drtikol completed his military service in the Austro-Hungarian Army. In 1907, with financial support from his parents, he opened his photographic studio in Pribram. He produced portraits, landscapes, nudes, and made a report (using a magnesium flash) on  a coal mine. 

 František Drtikol, The Nudes of Drtikol, 1929

In 1910, Drtikol moved to Prague where he opened a studio with a partner, Augustine Skarda, who was primarily responsible for financial matters. He soon became the most prominent portraitist of the city, and his studio was visited by the personalities of the capital and illustrious visitors like the French writer Paul Valéry and the Indian poet and philosopher Rabindranath Tagore. He shot portraits of some of the most important figures of his day: Czechoslovakia's first president Masaryk, his foreign minister Edvard Benes, and the composer Leos Janacek.

 František Drtikol, The Soul, 1931

Drtikol escaped the massacre of the First World War because he was assigned to back regiments, first in the vicinity of Prague, then in Hartberg, near Graz in Austria. After the war he resumed his activity in a studio on the fourth floor of one of Prague's remarkable buildings, a Baroque corner house at 9 Vodičkova, now demolished. Drtikol's early works, mainly landscapes, were influenced by Pictorialism, namely by Leonard Misonne and Robert Demachy. In the early 1920s, he abandoned painted decorations for the benefit of wooden ones consisting of simple geometrical patterns, cubes, cylinders, rectangular plates, or rounded forms, as in The Wave (below), one of his most famous images. The influence of Cubism, and Constructivism is evident in this part of his work.

  František Drtikol, The Wave, 1925 

Drtikol continued to produce symbolistic images, including many variations on the theme of Salome. His marriage with dancer Ervina Kupferova in 1920 increased his interest in dance and motion. Like Rudolf Koppitz, Drtikol often placed his models in settings emphasizing the tension of the body fixed between two phases of movement. Later, Drtikol began using paper cut-outs in a period he called "photopurism". These photographs resembled silhouettes of the human form. 

 František Drtikol, Dancers (Paper Cut-Out), 1932

In the 1920s and 1930s, Drtikol received significant awards at international photo salons. He sold his studio in 1935 and slowly drifted into obscurity. He now focused mainly on painting, Buddhism and philosophy. In 1945, Drtikol taught photography at The State School of Graphic Arts in Prague, but resigned after one year. František Drtikol died in Prague on January 13, 1961. He is buried in the cemetery of Příbram, his hometown. You can see more of his work in my Flickr set.

Wenzel Hablik - Crystal Cities in the Air

  

A long time ago, I saw a big rock-crystal blasted out of the innermost St. Gotthard masiv - a very solitary and exclusive dream of nature. (Ernst Jünger, The Adventureous Heart)

 Wenzel Hablik and Elisabeth Lindemann-Hablik, c. 1930

Wenzel Hablik (1881-1934) was born in the Bohemian town of Brüx, Austria-Hungary (now Most in the Czech Republic). In later life he recalled that at the age of six, he found a specimen of crystal, and saw in it "magical castles and mountains" that would later appear in his art. Only eight years old, and parallel to his school education, Wenzel began a carpenter apprenticeship in his father's shop which he finished four years later as a master cabinetmaker.

Wenzel Hablik, Tropical Landscape, 1909

In the following years, Hablik worked as a porcelain painter, and as a draftsman in the office of an architect. Between 1902 and 1905, he studied painting and heraldry at the Vienna Kunstgewerbeschule, followed by three years of studies at the Prague Academy of Arts. His solo ascent of Mont Blanc, Europe's highest mountain, in 1906 was another formative experience, and quite an accomplishment at that time:

Wenzel Hablik, Untitled, 1906

During a trip to the German island of Helgoland, Hablik met the wealthy timber merchant Richard Biel who was to become his fatherly friend and patron. In 1907, Hablik permanently settled in Itzehoe, Biel's hometown near Hamburg, where he pursued architectural and interior design projects, producing designs for furniture, textiles, tapestries, jewellery, cutlery, and wallpapers. From 1908, Hablik designed complete interior decorations for his patron Biel and other wealthy families in northern Germany. Shortly after his arrival in Itzehoe, Hablik met the weaver and fabric designer Lisbeth Lindemann (1879–1960). They shared a workshop and studio in Itezhoe, and married in 1917.

 Wenzel Hablik, Planets, 1913

Hablik's first paintings, created in Prague between 1905 and 1907, show symbolistic influences, and were inspired by Hablik's admiration for the work of Edvard Munch. Hablik's view on nature was formed by his reading of Schopenhauer and Nietzsche which, around 1906,  laid the foundation of his utopian crystal-world. In 1909, Hablik published his Creative Forces (Schaffende Kräfte), a portfolio of twenty etchings portraying a voyage through an imaginary universe of crystalline structures that represents the most significant accomplishment of his career. Hablik also published other portfolios of his etchings, The Sea (1918) and Architectural Cycle - Utopia (1925). Some of Hablik's designs, particularly of lamps and small sculptures, also expressed the utopian crystalline forms of his etchings.

Wenzel Hablik, Untitled, Creative Forces Series, 1909

During and after a voyage to Constantinople in 1910, Hablik created a vast portfolio of oriental drawings and paintings, including portraits, landscapes and architectural scenes. Between 1909 and 1913, Hablik created wall-sized utopian visions of an outer space populated with phantastic planets and stars. These belong to the first cosmos paintings of the 20th century. In 1914 and 1917, Hablik produced two large sized paintings of crystal buildings standing in the sea:

Wenzel Hablik, Wonder of the Sea, 1917

In 1914, Hablik's textile designs for Lisbeth Lindemann were shown at the important Cologne exhibition of the Deutscher Werkbund, an association similar to the English Arts and Craft movement. Since 1912, Hablik was in close contact with the influential art expert Herwarth Walden, the founder of the Expressionist magazine Der Sturm (The Storm). Walden introduced him to Umberto Boccioni, one of the rising stars of Italian Futurism.

Wenzel Hablik, Crystal Castle in the Sea, 1914

In 1912, the Italian futurist Antonio Sant'Elia had proposed a giant airplane station for the center of Milan. His plan was a bold foreshadowing of what an airport might actually look like one day, but Sant'Elia would never see it realized. He joined the Italian army in 1915 and was killed during the Battles of the Isonzo, near Monfalcone. On the opposite side of the trenches, the architect Erich Mendelsohn, huddled in a bunker and, between mortar rounds, sketched a kind of dream city. Among his drawings were plans for a large-scale airport.

Wenzel Hablik, Crystal Cities on Moving Planets (Creative Forces Series), 1909

That same year, Hablik who, strangely enough, also served at the Isonzo front as a drafted war artist, proposed a utopian community that would hover in the sky. His drawings for a "flying settlement" (below a first sketch from 1908) depicted a cylindrical airship encircled by propellers. Within its core were workshops, baths and storerooms. The upper level contained residential spaces, the lower level a landing platform for small planes. This imagination was only topped by Bruno Taut who proposed a giant aerial theatre, a "cosmic-comical amusement in silver", that would be carried aloft by airplanes and rotated by propellers in the wind, while planes disguised at comets would zoom around it.

Wenzel Hablik, Structure of a Colony Floating in the Air, 1908

After the war, Hablik and Lisbeth Lindemann moved into a villa in Itzehoe which, through a complete redesign, became an artwork in itself (Gesamtkunstwerk). The villa was the couple's center of creativity with studios, metal work and gemstone cutting shops, as well as vast collections of minerals, snails, mussels and plants. The versatile Hablik also designed Notgeld (emergency money), which was issued by cities, boroughs, and even private companies when inflation in the Weimar Republic skyrocketed to a millions of percent  rate (my grandfather had to pay his workers twice a day, transporting the money bags in a truck).

 Wenzel Hablik, Notgeld (Emergency Money), Town of Itzehoe, Germany 1921

In 1919, Hablik, because of his expertise in utopian architecture, was invited by Bauhaus founder Walter Gropius to participate in the Exhibition of Unknown Architects which was organized by the revolutionary Arbeitsrat für Kunst (Art Soviet). The Arbeitsrat was a union of architects, painters, sculptors and art writers, who were based in Berlin from 1918 to 1921 and an important nucleus of the Bauhaus. It developed as a response to the Workers and Soldiers councils and was dedicated to the goal of bringing the current developments and tendencies in architecture and art to a broader population.

Wenzel Hablik, Utopian Buildings, 1922

The Arbeitsrat worked closely with the Novembergruppe and the Deutscher Werkbund. Wenzel Hablik, Hermann Finsterlin and some other architects represented in the Arbeitsrat, also united in the Glass Chain. The Glass Chain or Crystal Chain, initiated by Bruno Taut,  was a secret chain letter that was written between November 1919 and December 1920, and formed the basis of expressionist architecture in Germany. In 1920, Hablik participated in the exhibition Neues Bauen (New Architecture) together with  leading modern German architects like Hans Scharoun, Hans and Wassili Luckhardt, and Bruno and Max Taut.

Wenzel Hablik, Self-Supporting Cupola with five Mountain Peaks as Basis, 1925

From 1921, Hablik concentrated on household designs for textiles, furniture and silver cutlery, many of them showing his favourite crystal pattern. In 1925 and 1926, he undertook an extensive voyage visiting Bolivia, Chile, the West Indies and the Azores. This tour inspired Hablik to create paintings of tropical motifs, cactuses and flowers. In his designs, Hablik prefered since 1927 constructivist interiors, furniture and fabrics in succession to the Dutch De Stijl group. His textile designs and gobelins from the twenties and early thirties, woven by Elisabeth Hablik-Lindemann, are among the most modern and elegant of that period.

Dining room in the Hablik Villa, c. 1923

Hablik maintained a strong lifelong interest in crystals and geological forms generally. His visual art is notable for its highly imaginative and fanciful aspects; he created depictions of temples, flying cities, and crystal chasms. He produced some 600 artworks; about 250 oil paintings by Hablik are known at present. Hablik died at Itzehoe in 1934. A Wenzel Hablik Museum was established in the city in 1995. The museum contains much of his art, as well as his collections of crystals and minerals, seashells and snails.

 Contemporary Photo of Hablik's Studio

There is an excellent online article by Bärbel Manitz, Expressionistische Verklärung des Kristalls. (Expressionistic Transfiguration of the Crystal), placing Wenzel Hablik in the wider context of other "crystal" architects and painters. If you don't read German: The article contains some real picture gems of nearly completely forgotten artists. And if you like the idea of cities floating in the air: Have a look at the argentinian painter Xul Solar.

Josef Čapek - The Robot Inventor

 Josef Capek, Mr. Myself, 1920

Josef Čapek (1887-1945) was born in Hronov, Bohemia (Austria-Hungary, now Czech Republic). He was three years older than his brother Karel Čapek (1890-1938), who was to become one of the most influential Czech writers of the 20th century. Josef Čapek at first studied weaving (1901–3) at a craft school in Vrchlabí, but soon it became obvious that his talents for painting and designing called for more intensive training. For the next 6 years he studied decorative painting at the School of Applied Arts in Prague. 

 Josef Čapek, Prostitute, 1917

Like František Kupka and some other modernist Czech artists, Josef Čapek found himself in the right place at the right time - the place being Paris and the time the year 1910. He stayed in Paris together with his brother for about twelve months, while he studied at the Académie Colarossi. Both brothers at that time became friends with the poet Guillaume Apollinaire, who through his essays was one of the strongest driving forces behind several streams of modern art, including Cubism. Karel Čapek later became the Czech translator of Apollinaire's poetry. After the brothers' return to Bohemia, for some time Josef Čapek continued to paint essentially in the Cubist style, while gradually modifying Cubism with some elements of Expressionism and Symbolism.

 Josef Čapek, c. 1935

As talented as his brother Karel, though perhaps never quite so well known, Josef Čapek was not only active as a painter, but he was also successful as playwright, graphic artist, illustrator, scenic designer, novelist, writer of children’s books, non-fiction writer, journalist and art critic. Several of his works - notably The Insect Play - were written in collaboration with Karel, who also credits him with inventing the word robot, which made Karel Čapek instantly famous, after he wrote the stage play R.U.R. (Rossum's Universal Robots). In a humorous little article, Karel Čapek told the story of how the word Robot (the czech noun "robota" meaning "labor") was born:

The author of the play R.U.R. did not, in fact, invent that word; he merely ushered it into existence. It was like this: the idea for the play came to said author in a single, unguarded moment. And while it was still warm he rushed immediately to his brother Josef, the painter, who was standing before an easel and painting away at a canvas till it rustled. "Listen, Josef," the author began, "I think I have an idea for a play." "What kind," the painter mumbled (he really did mumble, because at the moment he was holding a brush in his mouth). The author told him as briefly as he could. "Then write it," the painter remarked, without taking the brush from his mouth or halting work on the canvas. The indifference was quite insulting. "But," the author said, "I don't know what to call these artificial workers. I could call them Labori, but that strikes me as a bit bookish." "Then call them Robots," the painter muttered, brush in mouth, and went on painting. And that's how it was. Thus the word Robot was born; let this acknowledge its true creator. (Lidove noviny, 24.12.1933)

 Josef Čapek, Fantomas, 1918

From about the late 1920s, Josef Čapek became much influenced by the Bohemian folk art, which resulted in a series of paintings, lithographs and pastels inspired by country life and children's plays. Another area of activity in Čapek's life was childrens' books, for which he wrote the stories and drew pictures. Well known became his charming book  The Tales of Doggie and Moggie, nine stories about a dog and a cat, who want to do things the way the humans do, quite inevitably with mixed success. It was previously published by Methuen as Harum Scarum (the dreadful film of the same name with Elvis Presley released about the same time in the early 1960s must have swayed the publishers towards using this title, which has not much to do with the stories).

 One of Čapek's last paintings (1939) - a dire vision of things to come

When Czechoslovakia was taken over by the Nazis in March of 1939, Josef Čapek, who was very well known for his anti-Hitler stance, was immediately arrested (his brother was already dead by this time). He was sent to different concentration camps (Dachau, Buchenwald, Sachsenhausen). Josef Čapek nearly survived to see the end of the war, but sadly he died in 1945, apparently of pneumonia, only a few days before the prisoners of the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp were freed by the Allied Armies.

 Josef Čapek, Harmonikár, 1919

More than 60 years after his death, Čapek is regarded as one of the best Czech visual artists ever. Some of his paintings have sold at art auctions for amounts approaching one million US dollars each. You can see more of Josef Čapek's work in Calypsospot's Flickr set.

Toyen

Toyen suggère que, sur un plan où le monde extérieur n'est qu'un élément nécessaire à la composition d'un monde complet, il dépend de nous de les connaître au jour le jour, puisque la perception d'un chant d'oiseau peut provoquer la résurrection de villes englouties où un voisin de palier se promène à bicyclette à la tête d'un cortège de girafes psalmodiant des hymnes au soleil. (Benjamin Péret)

 Toyen, Jindrich Heisler and Karel Teige, Prague 1940

Toyen (1902-1980) was born in Prague, where she attended UMPRUM (School of Decorative Arts) from 1919 to 1920. From an artistic, political and personal point of view, Toyen was an extremely independent person. She rejected her real name (Marie Cerminova) and chose to pursue her career under an assumed name - a mysterious one without a gender (derived from citoyen). She broke all links to her family in favour of several friends who were "bound by choice". Toyen protested against a bourgeois life and endorsed the anarchist movement. 

Toyen, Three Kings, 1925

Although Toyen's life was full of personal turbulences and misfortunes, her work retained authenticity and inner consistency. In the early 1920s, she began her lifelong friendship with the Czech painter, photographer and poet, Jindrich Styrsky (1899-1942). This was a remarkable union of two individuals who inspired, influenced and complemented each other. 

 Toyen, Objekt-fantom, 1937

In 1923, Toyen and Styrski joined the Czech avandgarde association Devetsil. In her early works, Toyen played with cubistic elements. In the mid-1920s, however, she created a series of naive paintings with hedonistic motifs. At the end of 1926, Toyen and Styrsky left Prague and moved to Paris. In the following year, they announced their own alternative to both of the leading avantgarde trends in Paris, Abstraction and Surrealism - Artificialism.

Toyen, Horror, 1937

Toyen and Styrsky returned to Prague in 1929. Styrski began publishing a magazin, the Revue érotique,  with drawings by Toyen. At that time, she also illustrated Justine by de Sade. By the end of the 1920s, Toyen's work became increasingly surrealistic. In 1934, she was one of the founding membes of the Czech Surrealist Group in Prague, which cooperated closely with André Breton's group. One year later, Breton and the poet Paul Eluard visited Prague and began a liflong friendship with Toyen, interrupted only by the Nazi occupation of Czechoslovakia. 

 Toyen, Zdenka Marčanová, Náš svět, 1934

During the years of occupation, Toyen's art went underground as Surrealism was another of the "Degenerate" art movements banned by the Nazis. Toyen, though she worked throughout the war years could not exhibit. After the war, she showed her work briefly in Prague before fleeing to Paris in 1947 (together with Jindrich Heisler) to escape the Stalinist takeover. Back in Paris, she worked until her death with André Breton, the French poet and anarchist  Benjamin Péret, as well as with Czech painter and poet Jindrich Heisler.

 Toyen, Relache, 1943

Toyen regarded painting as a natural need free of any ambition. She never conformed to the demands and claims of gallerists and art critics. Exhibiting her paintings was an opportunity to express her friendship with Surrealist writers, who wrote poems for her and texts for her catalogues. After her death in 1980, an exhibition of her work and of the collaboration with her Czech colleagues was shown at the Centre Pompidou, and in the following years, a number of important retrospectives were held. 

 Toyen, Paravent, 1966

Calypsospots curates a magnificent collection of Czech avantgarde art on Flickr. You can see many more of Toyens works there.

Jan Zrzavý

Jan Zrzavý (1890-1977),  an important protagonist of the Czech avantgarde, was born near Německý Brod in Bohemia (present-day Czech Republic). He studied at the Academy of Applied Arts in Prague, was a founding member of art group Sursum, and a member of many important artists' associations and societies. 

 Jan Zrzavý, Kavárna, 1923

 

He first visited France in 1907, returning to Paris and Brittany frequently until 1939, but maintaining close links to his homeland. The first period of his work (The Valley of Sadness, Nocturne, Suffering) combined the symbolism of  Czech Art Nouveau with expressionism enriched by cubistic elements. Zrzavý was influenced and inspired by Italian Renaissance, namely by Raffael and Leonardo. 

 Jan Zrzavý, Melancholy, 1920

After World War I, Zrzavý's works expressed lyrical and soft dreamlike contours as shown in the above Melancholy. From 1947 to 1950 Zrzavý was an associate professor at Olomouc University . Later he maintained private studios in Prague and Okrouhlice. He was increasingly recognized on a national and international level in the 1950s and 1960s, and was honoured a title of a National Artist in 1965. He was admired by one of the founders of the Czech surrealistic movement, Karel Teige. Jan Zrzavý died in Prague on October 12, 1977.

 

Jan Zrzavý, Veles, 1929

You can see more works of him here on my Flickr Page.