František Kupka – Wikipedia

František Kupka (Opočno, 23 September 1871 – Puteaux, June 24, 1957) was a Czech painter, among the major exponents of abstract painting and orfism. Kupka’s abstract works arise from realism, then evolved into pure abstract art.

He was born in 1871 in Opočno, in Eastern Bohemia (then part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, today in the Czech Republic).

From 1889 to 1892, he attended the Academy of Fine Arts in Prague. ^[first] At the time his painting was with a historical and patriotic theme.

Like many artists, he began following the styles learned at the Academy, including late romanticism, still fashionable in the Academies of Prague and Vienna. As shown by his painting view of Dobrusa (1889), painted in the greatest artistic tradition.
Kupka enrolled in the Academy of Fine Arts in Vienna, where he concentrated on allegorical and symbolic themes. He was influenced by the painter and social reformer Karl Wilhelm Diefenbach (1851–1913). He exposed his works to the Art association of Vienna, in 1894.
His involvement with Theosophy and Eastern philosophy dates back to that period.
Since spring 1894, Kupka settled in Paris, ^[first] Where he attended the Academy of Fine Arts and the Julien Academy and then studied with Jean-Pierre Laurens at School of Fine Arts .
After moving to France, his artistic production developed independently, without a direct relationship with Czech art.
Kupka’s activity is multifaceted, because he also created numerous art nouveau style illustrations (in this he carefully following his compatriot Alfons Mucha), in particular for the magazine cock-a-doodle Doo . He worked as an illustrator of books and posters and during his early years in Paris, he became known for his satirical drawings for newspapers and magazines, including the Butter plate It is The Savage Duck . But in the agitated climate of the Paris of the beginning of the century, the modernist Kupka does not miss the opportunity to be inserted in the social debate, creating numerous illustrations in support of universal suffrage, as well as sharp satire. In the meantime, he also studied physiology and biology.
In 1906, he settled in Puteaux, a suburb of Paris, and that same year he exhibited for the first time to Autumn Fair .

He was deeply affected by the first poster of Futurism, published in 1909 in Le Figaro and in the late ten years, Kupka embraced the coloristic concept of the Fauves ( Gallien’s taste 1909-1910, Family Portrait 1910). ^[first]

Kupka reaches abstraction after a long research work. Since 1908, his illustrations in his magazine “Prometheus” have reflected a great artistic research: the author wonders for a long time on the perspective, making many studies both in his illustrations and even in his paintings. With his painting “The Piano keys” of 1909 marked a break in his representative style. His work became more and more abstract around 1910-11, reflecting his theories on movement, color and relationship between music and painting (orfism). His characters gradually become confused, as in a “moving” photography. Movement and time are processed by shadows and color changes. Between 1910 and 1911 it produces a painting entitled “Madame Kupka among the verticals”, on which the face of his wife between the vertical lines is enclosed. From that moment on, geometric forms are imposed on its art and abstraction.

Of 1910 they are his first abstract works, of impressive chromatic exuberance, he defined as “art inobjecttiv”, inadversial art, with which he tried to reach acction of appearances, a reality of a philosophical or even spiritualist nature.

In 1911, he participated in the meetings of the Puteaux group (gold section). Discuss of art, science, mathematics and various trendy concepts, while presented his paintings and theories to other artists. The group is very interested in cubist works towards which Marcel Duchamp, Francis Picabia and Kupka remain skeptical, unlike Albert Gleizes and John Metzinger who defend them.

In 1912 he exhibited his Amorpha. Two -colored fugue , at the Salon des indépendants in the cubist room, although he did not want to be identified with any movement.
In a historical period where the new art of cinema had questioned the representative art Kupka is interested in the scientific theories of Isaac Newton on the movements and rotations of the bodies, and in this painting, investigates the metaphysics of the movement within the time. On aesthetic level, the reference to the archaic world is evident, with forms with a primitive flavor that form the two stylized bodies, lost in a whirlwind cosmic dance. ^[2]

After the declaration of war of August 1914, although frequent Parisian anarchist circles and both antimilitarist, Kupka undertakes as a volunteer and finds himself at the forefront in the sums, in the same company as the poet Blaise Cendrars.

After the war, he resumes working on several unfinished paintings, continues his research on light and movement and directs his style towards a more figurative painting. In 1921, his first personal exhibition was organized at Povolazky Gallery in Paris. In 1923 he was appointed professor of Fine Arts in Prague, but refused the assignment, while feeling very honored by the proposal, and remains in Paris taking on the task of dealing with the Czech artists. He meets an industrialist and Czech art collector, Jindamb Waldes, who becomes his patron, as well as one of his greatest friends, promoting and financially supporting Kupka until 1939, the year in which Waldes, as a Jew, is arrested by the gesture e imprisoned for two years in the concentration camps of Dachau and Buchenwald, where he will lose his life.

In 1923 his main theoretical work was published: ” Creation in plastic art “. The contemporary text of Kupka’s entry into abstraction is written between 1910 and 1913, and is an important reflection on the nature of art, and on the pictorial project of its author. ^[3] It is a dense and complex document, now indispensable for a good understanding of artistic evolution.

In 1931, he joined the Abstraction-Créction group, founded the previous year by Theo Van Doesburg, and which included, among others, Jean Arp, Piet Mondrian, Theo Van Doesburg, Barbara Hepworth and Kandinsky vasils.

In 1936, his work was included in the Cubism and Abstract Art exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art in New York, and in an important exhibition with another Czech painter, Alphonse Mucha, at the Jeu de Pume in Paris. A retrospective of his work took place at Galerie Mánes in Prague in 1946. The same year, Kupka participated in the Salon des Réalités Nouvelles, where he continued to expose regularly until his death. During the early 1950s, he obtained general recognition and held several personal exhibitions in New York.

Together with Vasili Kandinsk and Piet Mondrian was among the pioneers of abstract art in Europe. Kupka developed its abstract lines in different ways: vertical, organic shapes and linear movement. Since the 1930s, when he became a member of the Abstraction-Créction artistic group, he focused on geometric abstraction. ^[first]

Internationally, František Kupka is the best known Czech painter of the twentieth century.

Before 1910: Impressionism and symbolism [ change | Modifica Wikitesto ]

• Vue de Dobruška (1889);
• Heine dying’s latest dream (1893), National Gallery, Praga;
• Dance of Death (1896), Paris;
• Lying naked, Gabrielle , (1898), National Gallery, Praga;
• Money (1899), National Gallery, Praga;
• The black idol (1900), Centro Georges Pompidou, Paris;
• The mirror I (1900), Paris;
• The water lilies (1900), Centro Georges Pompidou, Paris;
• Round of women. Sirens (about 1900-1905);
• Epona Ballade (1901), Centro Georges Pompidou, Paris;
• The knights (1901-1902), Centro Georges Pompidou, Paris;
• Money , cover of The butter plate , January 11, 1902, Parigi;
• The wave (1902), National Gallery, Praga;
• The joys (1902);
• The voice of silence (1903), National Gallery, Praga;
• Two dancers , Centro Georges Pompidou, Paris;
• Portrait de Madame Kupka (1905), Centro Georges Pompidou, Paris;
• The yellow range (1907), Centro Georges Pompidou, Paris;
• Woman Picking Flowers (1908), Centro Georges Pompidou, Paris;
• Grand no , Centro Georges Pompidou, Paris;
• The dream (1909);
• Piano keys (1909), National Gallery, Praga.

After 1910: abstraction [ change | Modifica Wikitesto ]

• Vertical prescription (1910), Centro Georges Pompidou, Paris;
• Plans by colors, large naked (1910), Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York;
• Family portrait (1910), National Gallery, Praga;
• The archaic (1910), Centro Georges Pompidou, Paris;
• Nocturne (1910), Louis Carré, Paris;
• To the primitive (1910-1911), Centro Georges Pompidou, Paris;
• Around a point (1911), Centro Georges Pompidou, Paris;
• Madame Kupka among the verticals (1911), Museum of Modern Art, New York;
• Newton discs (1911-1912), Centro Georges Pompidou, Paris;
• Location of geometric mobiles 0 1911), Louis Carress, Paris;
• Black features rolled up (1911-1912), Centro Georges Pompidou, Paris;
• Vertical orders (1911-1912), Centro Georges Pompidou, Paris;
• Amorpha, fugue in two colors (1912), National Gallery, Praga;
• Cosmic spring (1911-1920), National Gallery, Praga;
• Plans by colors (1911), Centro Georges Pompidou, Paris;
• Cathedral (1912), Museo Kampa, Praga;
• Bell sounds (1912), Karl Flinker collection, Paris
• Compliment (1912), Centro Georges Pompidou, Paris;
• Vertical plans (1912), Centro Georges Pompidou, Paris;
• Fugue in two colors (1912);
• Vertical plans (1912-1913), Centro Georges Pompidou, Paris;
• Waves (1912-1913), Karl Flinker collection, Paris;
• Cathedral (1913-1914), Louis Carré, Paris
• Gray and gold (1919), Louis Carré, Paris;
• Tale of pistils and stamens (1920), Centro Georges Pompidou, Paris;
• Philosophical architecture (1913-1923), Louis Carben, Paris;
• Vertical and diagonal plans (1913-1923), National Gallery, Praga;
• Insistent white line (1913-1923), National Gallery, Praga;
• Blue (1913-1924), National Gallery, Praga;
• Purple and yellow, reminiscence (1921-1924), Centro Georges Pompidou, Paris;
• Idol (1923), Centro Georges Pompidou, Paris;
• Black oval (1925), Centro Georges Pompidou, Paris;
• Machinery (1925), Centro Georges Pompidou, Paris;
• Features, plans, space III (1913-1926), Centro Georges Pompidou, Paris;
• Synthesis (1927-1929), National Gallery, Praga;
• Around a point (1911-1930), Centro Georges Pompidou, Paris;
• Abstract painting (1930-1932), Centro Georges Pompidou, Paris;
• Three Blues and Three Reds (1913-1934), Centro Georges Pompidou, Paris;
• Circular and rectilinear (1937), National Gallery, Praga;
• CVI Series (1935-1946), National Gallery, Praga;
• XI XI Series (1947), Centro Georges Pompidou, Paris;
• Intimate event (1951-1952), Centro Georges Pompidou, Paris;
• Two blues (1956).

• ( OF ) Max Bill, Frank Kupka on his 75th birthday , Winterthur, 1946.
• ( FR ) Bernard Dorival, Kupka’s work , Parii, pailii, Mustern Mustern Europe National, Martemore 1965.
• ( OF ) Markéta Theinhardt, Frantisek Kupka and the forms , in Cubism, constructivism, form art , Vienna, 2016, pp. 45-55.

• Kupka <2.>, floomivity , in TRECCANI.IT – encyclopedia online , Rome, Institute of the Italian Encyclopedia. URL consulted on February 8, 2016 .