Lot 203

Jan Smetana (1918 - 1998) A LATE BLOSSOM

The city and its peripheries, the aesthetics of seemingly banal nooks and crannies, are the themes that inspired the important Czech modern painter and grower Jan Smetana. In his work, he placed great emphasis on light, lines, color shades and their saturation. He also tried to capture the poetics of the city with some abstracted organic structures, such as in The Late Flower. He was a member of group 42 and also of the Art Department of UB, The Hollar Association of Czech Graphic Artists and later became a member of group 58. In 1936 he began studying at the CTU in Prague at the Faculty of Architecture with O. Blažíček, K. Pokorný and C. Bouda. He was arrested by the Gestapo on November 17, 1939, and was in captivity until April 1940. After the war, he graduated from college and began working as an assistant professor, prof. M. Salcman at the Institute of Painting at the Ped. Faculty of Charles University in Prague. Smetana exhibited for the first time with Group 42, the first solo exhibition was in 1948 in Topič's salon in Prague, during his life a number of important group exhibitions took place, the last author's exhibition took place in 2006 at SGVU in Litoměřice.