FRANTIŠEK KUPKA (Czech, 1871-1957). Polaire, 1919-21. Gouache and watercolor over a preliminary drawing in black chalk. ...

Description

FRANTIŠEK KUPKA (Czech, 1871-1957)
Polaire, 1919-21
Gouache and watercolor over a preliminary drawing in black chalk
12-3/4 x 11-1/8 inches (32.4 x 28.3 cm)
Signed in pencil lower left: Kupka

PROPERTY OF MRS. RUTH CARTER-STEVENSON
PROVENANCE:
Royal S. Marks Gallery, New York, stock no. 254 (label verso).

EXHIBITED:
Galerie Karl Flinker, Paris, May-June 1960;
Galerie Charles Lienhard, Zurich, March 1961;
Gallery Royal S. Marks, New York, 1961.

LITERATURE:
L. Vachtova, Frank Kupka. Pioneer of Abstract Art, New York and Toronto, 1968, p. 207, illus. black and white, cat. no. 266, p. 310.

This dynamic painting in gouache relates closely to a series of larger-scale oil paintings entitled Cosmic Spring (National Gallery, Prague) which were breakthrough works in Kupka's career as a pioneering abstractionist. In this work and others dating from the mid-1910s through the early 1920s, the Czech modernist became dazzled by the phenomenon of nature's energy. By the mid-1920s, this interest shifted from nature's energy into an intense exploration of the energy generated by machines.



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