High-resolultion photograph(s) Download

Oil on cardboard. Signed on reverse: “Fr. Hudecek ‘Postava’ / 1946”. A Figure by Frantisek Hudecek builds on his iconic subject of the figure walking at night – the pedestrian going from nowhere to nowhere, exposed to alienation and loneliness, existing only within the clearly defined lines of the city or region. He focused on this subject from the early 1940s, when he infused his works with an existential sense of abandonment and the distress and oppression of living under Nazi occupation and he started to question the meaning of life. The figure walking at night was a subject also reflected in the literary work of Group 42, which Hudecek co-founded. The influence of another member of Group 42, Frantisek Gross, can be recognized in Figure; Hudecek had met Gross while he studied at the School of Applied Arts under Frantisek Kysela. Hudecek was a versatile artist who was open to many approaches; his oeuvre reveals a blend if various art movements, from Surrealism, Cubism and Geometric Abstraction to Op Art.