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František Kupka & Otto Gutfreund

Muzeum Kampa (Museum Kampa), U Sovových mlýnů 2, Praha 1 - Malá Strana

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permanent exhibition

The core of the Jana and Meda Mládek collection, as well as the permanent exhibition of the Kampa Museum, comprises works by two exceptional artists: František Kupka and Otto Gutfreund.

František Kupka (1871–1957)

Frantisek Kupka, perhaps the most important Czech painter of the 20th century, spent most of his life in France, but always remained in contact with the Prague scene. The exhibition presents key paintings from the Kampa Museum collections and a rotating selection of drawings – the exhibition is also modified depending on current temporary exhibitions. The permanent exhibition is divided into several areas. In the first section, visitors can learn more about Kupka’s figurative works, primarily from the years 1899 to 1911, that represent the beginning of his journey toward non-figural/abstract art. Another part of the exhibition focuses on Kupka's way of working with color, based on his personal concept of "color plans" which differed from the Cubist concept of space and color (or rather "not a color") prevalent at the time. The third section shows how Kupka focused on point, line, and plane.

Otto Gutfreund (1889–1927)

Gutfreund’s work represents the pinnacle of Cubism in European sculpture. He became acquainted with the early days of Cubism during his studies in Paris in 1909 and 1910. His early work culminated first in Cubo-Expressionism, in which he dealt with the new concept of dynamizing expression in sculpture by breaking down its surface into edges and planes. Subsequently, he addressed the issues of Cubist sculpture, which activated space through radical sculptural forms. He was one of the only contemporary sculptors that helped drive the evolutionary transformation of Cubism, known primarily from works by its primary protagonists Pablo Picasso and Georges Braque, through modeling metaphysical content, typical of the Central European milieu. Gutfreund later abandoned the Cubist idiom in favor of primarily figural sculptures using simple rounded shapes. These helped define the new visual style of the young Czechoslovak republic, established in 1918.

 

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Information source: Museum Kampa