František Kupka

Painter, printmaker, draughtsman, cartoonist, Fighter for the Czechoslovakian Indenpendence, art teacher. Together with Hilma af Klint, Wassily Kandinsky and Piet Mondrian he belongs to the very pioneers of abstract painting. At Salon d´Automne in 1912 in Paris he exhibited first fully abstract painting in the history of arts. From Art Nouveau beginnings in Vienna and Paris, he developped his own „spiritualist“ insight into the abstract art. He studied theosophy and other occult sciences. After 1918 stayed in Puteaux near Paris, and in 1931, he was a founding member of international movement Abstraction-Création. In 1936, his work was included in the exhibition Cubism and Abstract Art at the Museum of Modern Art in New York City. A retrospective of his work took place at the Galerie Mánes in Prague in 1946. During the early 1950s, he gained general recognition and had several solo shows in New York. His work is to be found in the most prestigious public and private collections worldwide: Museum of Modern Art, New York, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, Peggy Guggenheim Collection, Venice, Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris, Museo Nacional Thyssen-Bornemisza, Madrid, National Gallery, Prague, Museum Kampa, Prague and many others.

Literature: Anna Pravdová, Markéta Theinhardt (eds.), František Kupka 1871–1957, Prague 2018.; Karel Srp, František Kupka. Sujet dans l´objet. Prague 2018.