Lot 120

Josef Šíma (1891 - 1971) IN A BAR

From the expert assessment by PhDr. Rea Michalová PhD: "Assessed artwork "In a bar" is authentic and artistically delicate drawing by Josef Šíma, one of the greatest characters stabilizing the form of Czech modern art. Author, who connected Czech and French avant-garde and whose works are characterized by unusually distinctive poetics of imaginative character. All significant chapters and compounds of his life-work are accompanied by the medium of drawing. He portrayed the ephemeral facial expression and eloquent body language of a woman in a bar with delicate hair-like lines. He brilliantly managed to record a feeling of an escaping moment showing a stenographic evidence of the sensibility of this age and "neurasthenic vitality" as he stated himself. A fragile form of his almost authomatically drawn imagination is complemented with a slight touch of watercolour. Two colour accents have mostly an emotional function, enhancing a lyrical impression and a evocative feeling of the gentle linear drawing and testify about unusual depth of Josef Šíma's psychological observation. Josef Šíma belongs to the most expensive Czech authors today. He was born in 1891 in Jaroměř in eastern Bohemia into an artistic family - his grandfather was a stonemason, father was a professor of drawing. He firstly studied at UMPRUM in Prague and between 1911 and 1914 at Academy of Fine Arts in Prague with professors Jan Preisler and Vlaho Bukovac."