Lot 167

Ladislav Dydek (1919 - 2006) TWO FEMALE NUDES

Ladislav Dydek studied at the School of Arts and Crafts in Brno and then at the Academy in Prague. He was one of the main members of the Máj 57 art group, active at the turn of the 1950s and 1960s. From 1969 until his death he lived in exile in northern Italy. Most of his works from the Italian period are now in the collection of the Carmelite Monastery on Lake Garda, and some are scattered in numerous Italian, German and Swiss collections. The double nude, as in the case of the offered painting from 1958, has long formed the core of Dydek's painting subject matter. Here, he employs a rudimentarily simplified form, where a strong and energetic contour line, together with a colouring completely independent of visual experience of the natural world, is the main vehicle for aesthetic effect. At the time of its creation, this method of painting marked a proclamatory departure from the ideological dictates of so-called socialist realism.