Lot 197

Bohumír Matal (1922 - 1988) THEY SHEARED DOWN A LITTLE BOY

From the opinion of PhDr. Rea Michalová PhD .: "The assessed painting "They sheared down a little boy" is an authentic, first-class, motivically beautiful, painting and poetry connection by Bohumír Matal, the youngest member of the famous Group 42, whose programmatic motto "man in the city, city in the man" is indelible inscribed in his work focused on the modern life of the man of the twentieth century. The constant of his expression was the precise drawing of the shape without significant valeries. In his paintings there is no room for chance, everything is thought through to the last detail. Several variants of Matal's painting (one work is in the collections The Moravian Gallery in Brno, another own Gallery of Modern Art in Hradec Králové) and the poem of the same name by Josef Kainar (published in the collection: Josef Kainar, New Myths. Poems. Prague, 1946) are considered to be the most striking example of the symbiosis of art and poetry. "They sheared down a little boy" depicts a geometrically stylized child figure, dressed in a hairdresser's cloak, sitting on a high chair in a constructively conceived interior. The side table with scissors and a hairdressing razor clearly identifies the motif. The author's typical civilian poetics, connected with the program of Group 42, comes into play. The shape composition is characterized by a solid, thoroughly thought-out construction of a post-Cubist pedigree. The division of the individual geometric elements creates an extremely suggestive mosaic of colored surfaces, united by a uniform, literally warm radiating undertone. "