František Kupka

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František Kupka

František Kupka (September 23, 1871 - June 24, 1957) was great Czech painter and graphic artist. He was pioneer and co-founder of early phases of the abstract art movement and orphic cubism (orphism). First František Kupka´s abstract works arose from realistic base, but his mature works represent pure abstract art.

[edit] Biography and work

Fuge in 2 Colors

František Kupka was born in Opočno, eastern Bohemia (now Czech Republic). From 1889 to 1892, he studied at the at the Prague Art Academy. At this time, he painted historical and patriotic themes. In Kupka enrolled at the Akademie der Bildenden Künste in Vienna, Vienna, where he concentrated on symbolic and allegorical subjects. He exhibited at the Kunstverein, Vienna, in 1894. His involvement with theosophy and Eastern philosophy dates from this period. By spring 1896, Kupka had settled in Paris; there he attended the Académie Julian briefly and then studied with Jean-Pierre Laurens at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts. Kupka worked as an illustrator of books and posters and, during his early years in Paris, became known for his satirical drawings for newspapers and magazines. In 1906, he settled in Puteaux, a suburb of Paris, and that same year exhibited for the first time at the Salon d’Automne. Kupka was deeply impressed by the first Futurist manifesto, published in 1909 in Le Figaro. Kupka’s work became increasingly abstract around 1910–11, reflecting his theories of motion, color, and the relationship between music and painting (orphism). In 1911, he attended meetings of the Puteaux group. In 1912, he exhibited at the Salon des Indépendants in the Cubist room, although he did not wish to be identified with any movement. Creation in the Plastic Arts, a book Kupka completed in 1913, was published in Prague in 1923. In 1931, he was a founding member of Abstraction-Création. In 1936, his work was included in the exhibition Cubism and Abstract Art at the Museum of Modern Art in New York, and in an important show with another excellent Czech painter Alphonse Mucha at the Jeu de Paume in Paris. A retrospective of his work took place at the Galerie Mánes in Prague in 1946. The same year, Kupka participated in the Salon des Réalités Nouvelles, where he continued to exhibit regularly until his death. During the early 1950s, he gained general recognition and had several solo shows in New York. Kupka died in Puteaux, France.

[edit] Important opuses

Planes by Colors (aka Great Nude), circa 1909,
Guggenheim Museum, New York.

Planes by Colors
The Colored One
Reminiscence of a Cathedral
Blue Space

Works in Peggy Guggenheim Collection, New York:

Study for Woman Picking Flowers (Femme cueillant des fleurs), cca 1910
Study for Amorpha, Warm Chromatics, Chromatique chaude and for Fugue in Two Colors (Fugue a deux couleurs), cca 1910-1911
Vertical Planes (Plans verticaux), 1911-1912
Study for Organization of Graphic Motifs I (Localisations de mobiles graphiques I), cca 1911-12
Around a point (Autour d'un point), cca 1920-1925