Lot 50

Roman Havelka (1877 - 1950) IN THE FOREST

The Moravian painter Roman Havelka belongs to a large group of landscape painters of the Mařák School. He first studied at the School of Applied Arts in Prague under Jiří Stibral, Emanuel K. Liška, Stanislav Suchcarda and Felix Jenewein. He then went on to study at the Prague Academy with Julio Mařák and Rudolf von Ottenfeld.  He graduated in 1900. On the basis of a Hlávek scholarship he studied at the Academy in Munich. After his return, he settled permanently in Moravia, where he worked as a landscape designer and organizer of landscape courses. He was a member of the Union of Visual Artists in Prague and one of the founding members of the Association of Moravian Visual Artists in Hodonín.  During his lifetime he had only one solo exhibition in 1937 in Olomouc.
The offered painting of the interior of a forest is a typical example of Mařák's realistic landscape painting, documenting a specific section of nature with skilful and confident painting execution. The chamber format and the cardboard support may suggest that the painting was made directly in the plein air.