Lot 83
Oldřich Koníček (1886 - 1932) VENUS (BAY OF KOTOR)

114 x 101 cm (h x w)

Starting price
180 000 CZK
   |   7 200 €
This painting of Venus standing at the Bay of Kotor is a beautiful example of Neoclassical painting, a movement that in the 1920s was also characteristic for other painters: Jan Zrzavý, Bohumil Ullrych, Georges Kars, František Janoušek and others. At Oldřich Koníček's posthumous exhibition at the Mánes (1932), Jaromír Pečírka commented on Koníček's Neoclassical painting: "In around 1922 he started with a number of nude girls, who sometimes have the names of godesses; the painter creates a special, broad, plump type of girl, and it is remarkable that he never uses a model." The female nude is portrayed in a style based on the principles of precise drawn outlines, multiplying the plastic nature of how volume is modeled and denying the self-supporting position of color brought to visual art by other movements. The painter, a student of Professor Vlaho Bukovac and Rudolf Otto von Ottenfeld at the Academy of Fine Art, held his first exhibition before he started attending the academy and his paintings enjoyed success; in 1908 he was exhibited at the Rudolfinum and in 1910 he became a member of the Mánes Union of Fine Artists. He was captivated by the work of Cézanne, Friesz and Derain. He focused on painting portraits, nudes, figurative compositions and still lifes. A number of his paintings are highly valued due to their documentary-like quality. Koníček undertook a number of study trips in his native land and throughout Europe; his paintings have been exhibited at galleries in Paris, Zurich, Berne, Bolzano, Venice, Rome and Vienna, as well as in Prague, Hradec Králové, Lomnice nad Popelkou and Přerov. Published in the catalogue on Czech Neoclassicism of the 1920s "Český neoklasicismus dvacátých let", volume 2, "Mezi klasickým řádem a selankou", Prague City Gallery, Hana Rousová, 1989, no. 63 in the list of exhibited works.

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