1 100 000 Kč

Paintings

artist

Čeněk Pražák

period

1980s

technique

Oil on canvas

dimensions

170 × 120 cm

provenance

From the author's estate, Galerie Weinberg

Čeněk Pražák (1914 – 1996) was a sculptor, architect, graphic artist, painter, illustrator, typographer, and photographer. From 1961–1964, he was a member of the Máj 57 group. From 1969, he lived in exile in Switzerland. In his youth, he painted and learned to play the violin. From 1930, he privately studied painting, first with the Art Nouveau painter Karel Peterka. He became a member of a water scout troop, where he befriended Prince M. Lobkowicz. In 1934, he stayed in Paris, and from 1936–1939, he served in the army. In 1942, he met the painter Ladislav Bradáč (1885–1949), with whom he privately studied painting until 1949. Bradáč was a friend of Bohumil Kubišta and had a large collection of pre-war modern art. Pražák also educated himself in the history of world non-European and French art. From 1942, he worked as an illustrator and designer of book covers and record sleeves for several publishers. After the communist coup, he lost the opportunity to earn a living as an illustrator because private publishing houses ceased to exist. He later learned that his cover for Skořepa's poetry collection Orfeus won an award at "The Art of the Book Jacket" exhibition in London in 1946. He befriended František Tichý, who was dismissed from his professorship by the communists. With his second wife Anna, he worked in a factory as a doll decorator. In 1955, Pražák lost his membership in the Union of Czechoslovak Artists but was still allowed to work for the Práce publishing house. František Tichý arranged illustrations for Odeon publishing and gave him a commission to decorate the Bethlehem Chapel (1954). In the 1960s, he systematically devoted himself to painting. In 1960, he became a member of the Máj 57 art group and exhibited with them in 1961 and 1964. In 1961, the Ministry of Culture bought his painting "Blue Cathedral." In 1964, he had his first solo exhibition and was re-admitted to the Union of Czechoslovak Artists. He won the third prize from Mladá fronta publishing and a bronze medal at the Leipzig Book Fair in 1966 for illustrations for Čapek's book "War with the Newts." In 1965, he traveled abroad for the first time to Munich. He befriended Jiří and Běla Kolář and, thanks to their intervention, was able to travel to the Venice Biennale. He was represented at the Spring Exhibition in Mánes (1966) and organized the 1st Prague Salon. In 1967, he was represented at the exhibition of the Block of Creative Groups and at an exhibition in Sopot. Together with the Austrian association März, he organized an exhibition of the Máj group in Linz. The following year, at the März association exhibition, he met sculptor Alfred Gruber and his wife Jacqueline, who offered him asylum in their home after his emigration to Switzerland in 1969. After the occupation of Czechoslovakia in August 1968, he decided to go abroad. In 1969, he organized the exhibition "Artisti contemporanei di Praga" in Bologna, which was reprised in Basel. Jiří Kolář took over the organization of the 2nd Prague Salon. In September, he emigrated with his wife via Austria to Switzerland, where he had his first solo exhibition in 1970. His friends managed to smuggle Pražák's violin across the border. In 1974, he became a member and from 1978, concertmaster of the chamber orchestra in Laufental-Thierstein. He was a member of the Riehentor galleries in Basel and Ernst Scheidegger in Zurich, and in 1983, he was elected to the presidium of the Swiss Society of Sciences and Arts. In his painting, he started from figuration and followed expressive and Cubist tendencies from the early 20th century. In the 1960s, he simplified the figure to an artistic sign and created non-representational abstract compositions composed of geometric elements in the form of a pictorial collage. He also used frottage techniques and plastic processing of painting material. His constructivist abstract work in exile is characterized by parallel organic lines in contrasting colors, which are effectively used as a dynamic element in a number of architectural realizations. His design work also influenced his free painting, in which he returned to figuration, strongly influenced by pop art. Characteristic is the unification of space through repetitive colored parallel lines that plastically depict figures. The compositions depict specific human situations (Figurative Projections, 1973). The overall impression of the painting is both lyrical and dramatic.