František Kupka

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František Kupka (also known as Frank Kupka or François Kupka;<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> 23 September 1871 – 24 June 1957) was a Czech painter and illustrator who moved from realism to abstract art, pioneering Orphism.<ref>Benezit Dictionary of Artists</ref><ref name="Grove Art Online">Grove Art Online</ref><ref>Template:Cite book</ref>

Biography

Education

František Kupka was born in Opočno (eastern Bohemia) in Austria-Hungary (now in the Czech Republic) on 23 September 1871. From 1889 to 1892, he studied at the Academy of Fine Arts in Prague. At this time, he painted historical and patriotic themes. Kupka enrolled at the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna, where he concentrated on symbolic and allegorical subjects. He was influenced by the painter and social reformer Karl Wilhelm Diefenbach (1851–1913) and his naturistic life-style. Kupka exhibited at the Kunstverein, Vienna, in 1894. His involvement with theosophy and Eastern philosophy dates from this period. By spring 1894, Kupka had settled in Paris; there he attended the Académie Julian briefly and then studied with Jean-Pierre Laurens at the École des Beaux-Arts.<ref name="Grove Art Online"/><ref>Template:Art UK bio</ref>

World War I

Kupka served as a volunteer in the First World War, and is mentioned in La Main coupée by Blaise Cendrars. Cendrars describes him as a "proud soldier, calm, placid, strong", but really too old to be a soldier, being at least 25 years older than the rest. When the regiment set out from Paris for the front in Picardy (they marched all the way on foot) Mme Kupka met the column as they arrived at the La Défense roundabout, near where they lived. She marched with them, carrying her husband's bag and his rifle. She would have marched all the way to the front, but at the end of the first day the colonel had her arrested and sent back to Paris. She later made her way to the front lines to spend time with her husband. Kupka himself left the front due to frostbite in the foot, caused by nights in the trenches waist-deep in freezing water.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

Career

The Yellow Scale, 1907, oil on canvas, 78 x 74 cm, Museum of Fine Arts, Houston
File:František Kupka, 1912, Amorpha, fugue en deux couleurs (Fugue in Two Colors), 210 x 200 cm, Narodni Galerie, Prague.jpg
Amorpha, Fugue en deux couleurs (Fugue in Two Colors), oil on canvas, 210 × 200 cm, 1912, National Gallery Prague
The Salon d'Automne of 1912, held in Paris at the Grand Palais from 1 October to 8 November. Kupka's Fugue in Two Colors is exhibited on the left. Other works are shown by Jean Metzinger (Dancer in a Café), Joseph Csaky (Groupe de femmes), Francis Picabia (La Source), Amedeo Modigliani (sculptures) and Henri Le Fauconnier (Mountaineers Attacked by Bears).

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 the same year exhibited for the first time at the Salon d'Automne. In 1907 he published his self-portrait The Yellow Scale, believed to be is masterpiece. Kupka was deeply impressed by the first Futurist Manifesto, published in 1909 in Le Figaro. Kupka's 1909 painting Piano Keyboard/Lake marked a break in his representational style. His work became increasingly abstract around 1910–1911, reflecting his theories of motion, color, and the relationship between music and painting (orphism). In 1911, he attended meetings of the Puteaux Group (Section d'Or). In 1912, he exhibited his Amorpha, Fugue en deux couleurs, 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.<ref>museothyssen.org</ref>

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 City, and in an important show with another 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.

Between 1919 and 1938 Kupka was financially supported by his good friend, art collector and industrialist Jindřich Waldes who accumulated a substantial collection of his art. Kupka died in 1957 in Puteaux, France.

Work

Among Kupka's first color studies, his painting The Yellow Scale (c. 1907)<ref name=Rowell>Template:Cite book</ref> centers on yellow itself.<ref name=mfah-tys>Template:Cite web</ref> He began developing his own color wheels (c. 1910), inspired by Isaac Newton<ref name=gage/> and Hermann von Helmholtz, leading to a series of paintings, "Discs of Newton" (1911–1912).<ref name=gage/> His strong interest in color theory and freeing colors from descriptive associations may have influenced Robert Delaunay.<ref name=gage>Template:Cite book</ref>

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

Works in Peggy Guggenheim Collection, Venice, Italy:

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

Other works include The Cathedral (Katedrála).

In March 2021, Kupka's Le Jaillissement II sold for Template:GBP 7,551,600 in an auction organized by Sotheby's, so far the highest price for his work.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

Personal life

Kupka was a vegetarian and took interest in theosophy.<ref>"František Kupka: A free and lonely pioneer of abstraction" Template:Webarchive. artfactproject.com. Retrieved 30 December 2021.</ref><ref>"Kupka, Pioneer of Abstraction, At Grand Palais". ideelart.com. Retrieved 30 December 2021.</ref> He practiced as a spiritualist medium and was alleged to have experienced clairvoyant trances.<ref>Moffitt, John F. (2012). Alchemist of the Avant-Garde: The Case of Marcel Duchamp. State University of New York Pre. p. 85. Template:ISBN</ref><ref>Wuppuluri, Shyam; Wu, Dali. (2019). On Art and Science: Tango of an Eternally Inseparable Duo. Springer. p. 77. Template:ISBN</ref> He was a believer in thought-forms which influenced his artwork.<ref name="Meecham">Meecham, Pam; Sheldon, Julie. (2000). Modern Art: A Critical Introduction. Routledge. p. 68. Template:ISBN</ref> His theosophic visions inspired his painting Disks of Newton (Study for "Fugue in Two Colors").<ref name="Meecham"/><ref>Rothstein, Mikael; Hammer, Olav. (2013). Handbook of the Theosophical Current. Brill. pp. 437–438. Template:ISBN</ref> He also practiced naturism.

See also

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References

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Bibliography

  • Template:Cite book
  • Kupka, František. La Création dans Les Arts Plastiques. Paris, 1923; edited and translated E. Abrams, 1989.
  • Template:Cite book
  • Kupka, František. La Création dans Les Arts Plastiques. Paris, 1923; edited and translated E. Abrams, 1989.

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