Frantisek Kupka: Paintings and Works on Paper
January 9-April 10, 1999
Louis Stern Fine Arts is pleased to present the work of Czech artist Frantisek Kupka. The exhibition will include paintings and drawings spanning the artist’s long and productive career.
Born in Bohemia (now in the Czech Republic), Kupka migrated to Paris in 1895 where he studied at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts, earning a living by illustrating classic books by Aristophanes, Aeschylus, and others. In Paris he lived within the various artistic communities, intimately aware of new aesthetic currents. Yet he also kept a certain distance, and always insisted on his independence from the many “isms” of the day.
As with so many artists of this era, Kupka had a lifelong interest in metaphyics which strongly influenced is art. In his painting, he sought the hidden truth behind the visible world. Like Mondrian and other members of De Stijl, as well as the Orphists, Kupka believed that this “truth” could be made visable by way of abstract forms. He describes his approach to form in this way:
"The form of all things, living, moving, immobile, depends on the interaction of two influences - the dynamism of the organism itself and the impact excersized by the environment - factors that function in a rapport of resistance and reciprocal tension."
These comments express Kupka’s general cosmology, his vision of a world in flux, it elements interpenetrated, linked in a process of continual change and development. It is this vitality which is expressed in his paintings.
From the very beginning of his career, Kupka enjoyed many exhibitions. Especially noteworthy was his inclusion in Alfred Barr’s Cubism and Abstract Art at the Museum of Modern art in 1936. He had his first retrospective at the Museé National d’Art Moderne in Paris in 1958, and the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York hosted a posthumous retrospective in 1975. Museums with important Kupka collections include the Tate Gallery in London, the Museum of Modern Art in New York City, and the Kupka Museum in Prague.