(1900-1903) Resistance – Black Idol
František Kupka

Description

Coloured aquatint on paper (1900-1903), 34,5×34,5 cm, 58×56 cm (including frame), signed Kupka in the left lower corner.
Origin: Auction Sotheby’s New York 1998.

Exhibited at the French Institute Praha, 14.9.-3.11.2016.

Published:
in catalogue František Kupka: The Pioneer of Abstraction, Painter of Cosmos, Dallas – Wolfsburg – Prague 1997-1998, page 45;
in catalogue František Kupka, from the collection of Jan and Meda Mládek, ČMVU, Prague 1996, picture number 3b;
in catalogue František Kupka, Musée d’art moderne de la Ville de Paris 1990, page 82;
in monographi Kupka, Serge Fauchereau, Barcelona 1989, page 9;
in catalogue Kupka, Kunsthaus Zürich, 1976, page 56;
in monograph František Kupka, Vachtová, 1968, page 227;
in catalogue František Kupka, NG Praha 1968, picture number 309
and others.
The highest price achieved in auction for Kupka´s oil on canvas – 56 million CZK in the year 2012, Adolf Loos Apartment and Gallery, Prague
The highest price achieved in auction for Kupka´s graphics – 8 thousand USD, Sotheby’s New York
The highest known price for Kupka´s graphics achieved in gallery sale – 500 thousand CZK in the year 2016, Prague
Many graphics and preparation studies with the motifs of Egyptian and Antiquity Arts preceded Kupka´s paintings with historical archaeological visions, which he likewise applied in the illustrations Elisée Recluse, The Man and the Earth, Monumental Statue of Mysterious God with Lifted Hand like Claw.
In the confrontation with a figure of small man it personalizes the metaphysical fear of man from the Infinity. The mysterious night environment of monuments shows to the man his smallness and uselessness in the context of the whole universe. Kupka, as a spiritist medium suffered from mental shakings and depression, which he transferred into these scenes. The Egyptian sphinxes appear on many drawings and graphics. To the most beautiful and impressive ones the oil on canvas painting Paths of Silence belongs. This painting is in the collection of the National Gallery in Prague. Naturally, later Kupka turned away from this mythological allegory and he went the way of abstraction.
This unique print appeared in the auction sale in the year 2016 and belongs to the most precious ones. It is known from the collection of the National Gallery in Prague.

Additional information