Lot 165

Jiří Martin (1915 - 1962) PARISIAN GIRL

During the Second World War, Jiří Martin was on total deployment in the Nazi German Reich. From there, he managed to escape to Paris, where he attended the Ecole des beaux arts from 1941 and, within the limits of the then occupied city, became acquainted with modern French art. After the end of the war and his return to Prague, he continued his studies at the Academy in Vladimír Pukl's graphic arts specialty. He was one of the founders of the important art group Máj 57 active at the turn of the 1950s and 1960s. The cabinet painting Girl from Paris from 1950 is an obvious reminiscence of the artist's stay in Paris. It bears the typical features of Martin's work at that time, which is based on the monumentality of forms with a distinctive outline drawing, the absence of mdelation and superfluous details, as well as on an unusual combination of rich colour tones. This way of painting was in complete contradiction to the ideological dictates of the time, the so-called socialist realism, which later led to the painter's official ostracism and probably to the health problems that caused his premature death.