Marie Čermínová was a Czech Transgender Artist mostly known as Toyen in the art world. During her 60-year career she was created a huge body of work including paintings, drawings, collages, illustrations and a selection of book covers. She was also a prominent member of the surrealist art movement.
“The professional artist is a deviation, even an anomaly. In 1924 no professional athletes were allowed to compete in the Paris Olympics. So why can’t we reject the professional cliques of painting, writing, sculpting and businessman? The work of art should not be the subject of commercial speculation nor of academic discussion. In essence it … Continue reading "The Surreal Mashed-Up World of Art Revolutionary Karel Teige"
Art theorist and critic, graphic designer, artist, author and translator Karel Teige (1900-51) is today recognized not just as the creator of internationally acclaimed surrealist collages, but also as a leading figure of the European avant-garde. Teige spent his entire life commenting on and interpreting developments in the visual arts. His multifaceted theoretical writings helped shape the conceptual foundations of modern art, and his activities and intensive contacts with other members of the European avant-garde helped secure Czech art's place on the international art scene. His work anticipated, initiated and helped to develop the progressive artistic movements that fundamentally influenced art in the 20th century.Karel Teige was one of the great European intellectuals of his time; his efforts were aimed at creating not just a system of aesthetics but also an all-encompassing life philosophy. He was intensively interested in architecture and found inspiration in Germany's Bauhaus (where he spent a year lecturing); architectural functionalism would have looked completely different without his input. Teige's preference for rational, minimalist designs with an emphasis on the social uses of modern architecture was the \"most functionalist functionalism\" of his time.Teige's own work consisted primarily of a series of phenomenal collages that reveal the hidden and passionate aspects of his personality. His book designs set the tone for an entire generation, and his design principles remain valid today. Teige's complicated personality, full of contradictions, utopian dreams and a yearning for order and logic make him an indecipherable and deeply human individual, a perfect symbol for the 20th century.This comprehensive, nearly 800-page monograph, by the art historian Rea Michalová, takes a wide-ranging look at the evolution of Teige's ideological, theoretical and political views, and recalls important moments in his life and their significance within the international context. The book includes a rich set of illustrations, photographs from his life, and examples of his unique collages and graphic designs.
“The professional artist is a deviation, even an anomaly. In 1924 no professional athletes were allowed to compete in the Paris Olympics. So why can’t we reject the professional cliques of painting, writing, sculpting and businessman? The work of art should not be the subject of commercial speculation nor of academic discussion. In essence it … Continue reading "The Surreal Mashed-Up World of Art Revolutionary Karel Teige"
“The professional artist is a deviation, even an anomaly. In 1924 no professional athletes were allowed to compete in the Paris Olympics. So why can’t we reject the professional cliques of painting, writing, sculpting and businessman? The work of art should not be the subject of commercial speculation nor of academic discussion. In essence it … Continue reading "The Surreal Mashed-Up World of Art Revolutionary Karel Teige"
“The professional artist is a deviation, even an anomaly. In 1924 no professional athletes were allowed to compete in the Paris Olympics. So why can’t we reject the professional cliques of painting, writing, sculpting and businessman? The work of art should not be the subject of commercial speculation nor of academic discussion. In essence it … Continue reading "The Surreal Mashed-Up World of Art Revolutionary Karel Teige"
“The professional artist is a deviation, even an anomaly. In 1924 no professional athletes were allowed to compete in the Paris Olympics. So why can’t we reject the professional cliques of painting, writing, sculpting and businessman? The work of art should not be the subject of commercial speculation nor of academic discussion. In essence it … Continue reading "The Surreal Mashed-Up World of Art Revolutionary Karel Teige"
Karel Teige's 1926 photomontage designs for the alphabet, choreographed in 1926 by the Czech dancer Milca Mayerová, are a uniquely elegant and witty invention, and one of the enduring masterpieces of Czech modernism
Utagawa Kuniyoshi (Japanese, January 1, 1798 - April 14, 1861) created ukiyo-e woodblock prints in Japan's late Edo period.
“The professional artist is a deviation, even an anomaly. In 1924 no professional athletes were allowed to compete in the Paris Olympics. So why can’t we reject the professional cliques of painting, writing, sculpting and businessman? The work of art should not be the subject of commercial speculation nor of academic discussion. In essence it … Continue reading "The Surreal Mashed-Up World of Art Revolutionary Karel Teige"
Karel Teige's 1926 photomontage designs for the alphabet, choreographed in 1926 by the Czech dancer Milca Mayerová, are a uniquely elegant and witty invention, and one of the enduring masterpieces of Czech modernism
In the 1960s and 70s, German-born photographer Evelyn Hofer (January 21, 1922 – November 2, 2009) pointed her lens at New York City’s people and places. The pictures show us the city, and let New Yorkers know how the rest of the world saw them. You can see these and more photographs in Evelyn … Continue reading "Still Life in 1960s New York"
Karel Teige's 1926 photomontage designs for the alphabet, choreographed in 1926 by the Czech dancer Milca Mayerová, are a uniquely elegant and witty invention, and one of the enduring masterpieces of Czech modernism
“The professional artist is a deviation, even an anomaly. In 1924 no professional athletes were allowed to compete in the Paris Olympics. So why can’t we reject the professional cliques of painting, writing, sculpting and businessman? The work of art should not be the subject of commercial speculation nor of academic discussion. In essence it … Continue reading "The Surreal Mashed-Up World of Art Revolutionary Karel Teige"
"I trust myself and I'm very go-with-the-flow in that sense," Peggy Kuiper told us last Fall in feature in our Quarterly edition. "When it comes to pa...
Karel Teige's 1926 photomontage designs for the alphabet, choreographed in 1926 by the Czech dancer Milca Mayerová, are a uniquely elegant and witty invention, and one of the enduring masterpieces of Czech modernism
Photomontage was pioneered as a technique in central Europe in the 1910s, where it flourished as an art form through the end of World War II. While German artists such as John Heartfield, Max Ernst and Hannah Höch used the medium to respond to the atrocities of war, other areas of Europe were simultaneously experiencing a newfound political autonomy as the Austro-Hungarian Empire collapsed. For these artists, namely Polish and Czech, photomontage manifested itself in a Surrealist approach to cut-and-paste imagery that emphasized its potential for visual poetry. Photo/Montage in Print traces the explosion of photomontage art in book cover design and illustrated magazines in the interwar period. Documenting the remarkable contributions of Czech artists in the creation of the visual language of modern print media, the publication includes some of the leading artists of the Czech avant garde such as Karel Teige, Jindrich Styrsky, Toyen, Ladislav Sutnar and Frantisek Muzika.
Marie Čermínová was a Czech Transgender Artist mostly known as Toyen in the art world. During her 60-year career she was created a huge body of work including paintings, drawings, collages, illustrations and a selection of book covers. She was also a prominent member of the surrealist art movement.
Czech writer Vitezslav Nezval (1900-58) was one of the leading Surrealist poets of the 20th century. \"Prague with Fingers of Rain\" is his classic 1936 collection in which Prague's many-sided life - its glamorous history, various weathers, different kinds of people - becomes symbolic of what is contradictory and paradoxical in life itself. Mixing real and surreal, Nezval evokes life's contradictoriness in a series of psalm-like poems of puzzled love and generous humanity. Nezval was perhaps the most prolific writer in Prague during the 1920s and 30s. An original member of the avant-garde group of artists Devetsil (\"Butterbur\", literally: \"Nine Forces\"), he was a founding figure of the Poetist movement. His numerous books included poetry collections, experimental plays and novels, memoirs, essays and translations. His best work is from the interwar period. Along with Karel Teige, Jindrich Aetyrsku, and Toyen, Nezval frequently travelled to Paris, engaging with the French surrealists. Forging a friendship with Andre Breton and Paul Aeluard, he was instrumental in founding The Surrealist Group of Czechoslovakia in 1934 (the first such group outside of France), serving as editor of the group's journal Surrealismus. His mastery of language and prosody was unparalleled - contemporaries referred to it as wizardry. Alongside with surrealist poetry, he wrote poems that sounded like genuine folksongs and for some time he teased the Czech literary public by the anonymous publication of three books attributed to a fictitious Robert David - one of 52 Villonesque ballades, another of 100 sonnets, all in strict classical form. His identity was guessed by the critics only because 'no one else would be able to do that'. This selection from his seminal collection has a specially commissioned foreword by Ivan Klima.
