Oil, canvas, frame. Original author's frame attached
Dimensions
h 47 × w 52 cm
Signature
signatura nezjištěna
Provenance
a personal gift from the wife of Prof. PhDr. et JUDr. Eugen Dostál, Olga Dostálová, to the owner's grandfather.
Short item description
Authenticity confirmed by PhDr. Rea Michalová, Ph.D.
The presented painting "Urban Landscape" is an original,
collectible and museum rarity,
formed in cubo-expressionistic style, early post-war work by Josef Šíma,
one of the few Czech artists who have made their mark in the history of fine arts in an international
context. Josef Šíma is one of the most remarkable
representatives of the painting avant-garde, his work combines
Czech and European traditions.
During his studies at the Academy of Fine Arts in Prague
he was a pupil of Jan Preisler, whose creative abilities
and his openness to new artistic knowledge
deeply influenced him. At the same time he studied at the Prague
and later Brno Technical School - deepening his knowledge
of natural sciences, mathematics and physics, ""provided his
poetic spirit a solid infrastructure and oriented
him towards scientific thinking, which he would use as a
a wondrous tool of structural reflection that he would
refined by his intuition"" (Monique Faux). Francis
Šmejkal and other theorists (J. Kotalík) have pointed out
that in the early landscapes, Josef Šíma was also influenced by
influence of Antonín Slavíček. If this influence was in the first
the first phase was somewhat external, it was fully manifested in Šima's
in Šíma's later work by building on Slavíček's work with light
in paintings of extremely soulful expression.
In 1921 Šíma settled permanently in Paris and in the same year
in the same year, he became a member of the Devětsil, which continued to
...and continued to mediate events and contacts in his native country. He is at first
he was first attracted by the purism of Ozenfant and Le Corbusier,
but in 1927 he became fully identified with the group's philosophy
Le Grand Jeu (The High Game), a grouping primarily
young French poets, which he co-founded.
He paints mythical prairies and immaterial landscapes
elements - he finds his own artistic world, which has
close to surrealism, though it never quite merges with it.
At the beginning of the Second World War, Šíma left for a decade.
and begins to work systematically from
1950s. His late work comes close to lyrical
abstraction, but still returns to the mindset of the High Game.
The painting under consideration, ""Cityscape,"" represents
Sima's very rare, unprecedented on the art market
work from the artist's first creative period, associated
associated with his stay in Brno in the first post-war years.
Šíma began studying in the Moravian capital in
1914, when he enrolled in the second year of the building
engineering at the local Technical University,
but his studies were interrupted by the war and a stay in Halych,
Italian and Russian fronts. In 1918, he enrolled at the technical college
He enrolled in the ""summer war semester"" at the Technical College, but then was reinstated
and it was not until the autumn of 1918 that he was
demobilized and returned to Brno. He was then already
twenty-seven years of age and so on his return he did not delay
and immediately became actively involved in the cultural life there.
(e.g. in February 1919 together with Jaroslav Kral,
Eduard Milén and František Süsser, he founded
Ales Artists' Club, bringing together mostly
young Brno artists, and became its executive director).
As František Šmejkal states, it was only in the trenches that
Josef Šíma realized that painting would be the main
meaning of his life. So he hired his first studio
in Březinova Street in Žabovřesky.
Prof. PhDr. et JUDr. Eugen Dostál (1889-1943) was
important Czech art historian, art
art critic and university teacher. From 1919
to 1926, he served as a provincial conservator at the
State Monuments Office for Moravia and Silesia
in Brno. He was the founder of the Seminar of Art History
(1927-1943), dean (1937-1938) and vice-dean
(1938-1939) of the Faculty of Arts of Masaryk University
Brno. The interesting relationship of Eugen Dostál
and Josef Šíma is that Šíma in 1926 edited for
Paris publishing house ""A l'enseigne du Pegas""
Dostal's representative publication ""L'architecture
Baroque de Prague"".
The painting ""Cityscape"" is
a representative, rare, gallery example
Šíma's work from the period 1919-1920,
when the artist was fond of going on errands to
the nearby surroundings to map the civilian face of the city
and its periphery. The work under review, for years
preserved in a first-class collection and thus in the public
unknown until now, connects it with the few other
of Šíma's paintings from this phase
(e.g. Street in Brno - Cejl, 1919-1920, private
collection; Train and Warehouse in Brno, 1920, MG in Brno;
Maloměřice cement factory, 1920, MG in Brno;
Suburban Landscape, Brno City Museum; etc.)
not only typically civilian suburban iconography,
but above all a clear constructive intention, which
transforms blocks of simple architecture into
post-cubist flatness. The result, however, is not
the emotional ""coldness"" of strict forms, but rather a compelling, concise
morphology accentuated by a dynamic handwriting
and expressive colour contrasts. ""Urban
Landscape"" fascinates with its radical simplification of form,
which has a post-cubist character; at the same time, however.
captivates with expressive elements, both in the ""restless""
painterly strokes, as well as in colour. The latter has
character of an almost spectral decomposition and in places, especially
in the lower right part of the painting, leads to the borderline
abstraction. ""Urban Landscape"" can be described as a valuable
art-historical discovery that significantly expands
and enriches our knowledge of Šíma's work in the Brno
period immediately preceding the artist's
his departure for France at the very end of 1920.
PhDr. Rea Michalová, Ph. D.
art historian and curator
