Lot 91

Zdeněk Dvořák (1897 - 1943) THE COUPLE

The Couple is an earlier work by the artist in which, as part of the period aesthetics established by Otto Gutfreund, he focused on Social Civilist-toned modernist realistic small sculptures, often made of fired clay.

Zdeněk Dvořák was an exceptional figure in Czech visual arts of the 1920s and 1930s, but during his lifetime he exhibited little and was publicly almost completely disengaged from the art scene. Moreover, due to financial constraints, he was unable to travel abroad, where he could have become personally acquainted with the work of the main protagonists of the European avant-garde. Dvořák's artwork followed two tracks: the figurative line in his work, which he developed throughout his life, oscillated between a Civilist and a descriptive interpretation; and abstract sculptures. His focus and inventiveness are unparalleled in Czech abstraction in the first half of the 20th century, except in the work of František Kupka and František Foltýn. Dvořák’s political opinions and actions are also remarkable. Following the occupation of Czechoslovakia, he joined the Nazi resistance as a member of the illegal National Revolutionary Council Intelligence Unit and was arrested and deported to Auschwitz, where he died in 1943.