Lot 105

Jan Štursa (1880 - 1925) A MAN PLAYING NINERA

Štursa's work reflects the moods of the time, from the melancholy of the turn of the century with echoes of Art Nouveau, through vitalism and fascination with Gauguin's primitivism, the traumatic experiences of the First World War, to the celebration of the freedom gained and the establishment of an independent Czechoslovakia. The sculpture on offer foreshadowed the aesthetics of civilism. Jan Štursa essentially did not abandon the basic starting point of his mature work: the search for a spiritual conception of sensual form in direct contact with perceived reality, which in the post-war period reached the position of harmonic modelling. Jan Štursa first studied at the sculpture and stone school in Hořice and from 1899 attended the Prague Academy. The rarely offered sculpture is in the collections of the National Gallery in Prague. Published: Jiří Mašín, Honty Tibor. Jan Štursa (1880-1925). Genesis of the work. Prague, 1981. p. 261.