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Oldřich Smutný

Museum Kampa
27. June 2015 - 30. August 2015
Curator David Bartoň


 

A lot of different newly established artist groups of the “1960’s generation” and their activities largely contributed to the then revival of the Czech society. One of those groups, which created in 1960, was UB 12. It soon became apparent, that members of this group, namely Václav Boštík, Jiří John, Adriena Šimotová and Oldřich Smutný, are the top representatives of Czech graphic art since the end of World War II.

Some, and also Šimotová, enriched modern art by gradually crossing borders of traditional visual art disciplines and bringing in means of expression from other fields. One of those who did not take this direction was Smutný, who never stopped expressing himself as a clean painter despite ever intensifying non-painterly tendencies of that time. Like John, he conceived painting holistically, both optically and haptically, and the significant part of his paintings were created with a “beautiful matter – belle matière”, formed with a strong brushwork. Colour scheme of his steady compositional schemes rotated, especially in monotypes, using inexhaustible imagination, and his clear blues and greens, bright yellows and reds surrounded by fine nuances of whites, which he understood like only very few modern painters secured him a very significant but often overlooked position amongst our colourists. These distinctive colour harmonies were inspired by beloved Southern Bohemia, his self proclaimed second home. He became its loyal and devoted portrayer and the symbolic paintings which celebrate the landscape around the city of Písek with white houses between blooming trees, swans on mirroring ponds, and clouds on a sky blue, along with Špála’s paintings of Otava, belong to the most painterly, musically and positively charged art of European culture in the 20th century – with all affinity to the art of France. Oldřich Smutný would have turned 90 this year and the exhibition of a selection of his extensive artwork in Museum Kampa is well deserved.
Jaromír Zemina

DAVID BARTOŇ (born 1964) graduated the Czech University of Life Sciences in Brno and worked as an agricultural engineer, warehouseman, innkeeper, ceramist and director of the City Gallery in Telč. Since 1998 he has been a curator, gallery owner and artist. He paints primarily the landscape of the Bohemian-Moravian Highlands.


 

 

Exhibition plan



Oldřich Smutný

17. 6. 1925 - 1. 9. 2013

Born June 17, 1925 in Debř. Originally, he wanted to be a violinist, but since fourteen years of age, he devoted himself wholly to painting. After graduating from grammar school in Mladá Boleslav, where he was introduced to art by Bedřich Mudroch, he studied at the Academy of Arts, Architecture and Design in Prague under the leadership of Jan Bauch (1945–1950), and additionally at the Pedagogical Faculty of Charles’ University (1951–1954) and at the Academy of Musical Theatre Arts under František Tröster. He then became his assistant and thought painting, later on as an associate professor, at the Department of Stage Design for thirty five years. He was an author of several theatre scenes, namely for the National Theatre in Prague and the South Bohemian Theatre in České Budějovice. For years he devoted himself to photography and in 1988 he received 1st prize for visual art of an animated film S úsměvem (With a Smile) at the Huesca International Film Festival. He wrote and illustrated a book called Labutě, labutě… (Swans, swans…) published in 1982 and again in 1986. In the 1960’s, he became a member of UB 12 and since 1992, he was a member of the Umělecká beseda art group. Oldřich Smutný lived and worked in Prague and in Putim, where he passed away September 1, 2013.

 

1925 Debř u Mladé Boleslavi ✚2013 Putim

 

1938

Mother is dying.

1937-1944

Studies at the Real Gymnasium in Mladá Boleslav. Drawing is taught by Pravoslav Kotík and Bedřich Mudroch.

1945

Studies drawing at the Technical University in Prague. Passes the exams for the School of Applied Arts in Prague.

1945-1950

Studies in the studios of Professor Jan Bauch at the School of Applied Arts (since 1946 at the Academy of Arts, Architecture and Design). Alois Klíma and Václav Kiml are his classmates. Meets Stanislav Kolíbal.

1949

Father is dying.

1950

Graduates from the Academy of Arts, Architecture and Design in Prague.

1951-1954

Studies stage design at the Academy of Performing Arts in Prague in the studio of prof. František Tröster.

1952

Designs the stage setting for The Bartered Bride. During his work he discovers the landscape of South Bohemia, which has become his permanent inspirational source. Becomes an assistant professor in Tröster’s studio at DAMU.

1955

Marries pianist Žofie Kresáková. Builds a house and studio in Putim, South Bohemia, where he regularly lives and works.

1957

Trip to Greece and the GDR.

1958

Trip to Brussels.

1959

Trip to Italy and the Soviet Union.

1960

Trip to Italy.

1962

Stanislav Kolíbal introduces Oldřich Smutný to the artists of the UB12 Group. Invited to participate in his first exhibition in the Gallery of the Czechoslovak Writer.

1968

Appointed associate professor at the Academy of Performing Arts. Visits France for the first time and subsequently goes every year. Designs and creates stucco for the interior of the Czechoslovak Embassy in London.

1970

At the World Exhibition in Osaka collaborates on the interior design of the Canadian Pavilion.
With the advent of Normalization, the group UB 12 began to dissolve and was officially banned in 1970.


Based on biographical data of the members of UB12 up to 1970 in: SLAVICKÁ Milena. UB 12 - Studies, interviews, documents. Prague: Gallery in cooperation with Gema Art a o.s. OSVU, 2006, pp. 306-311



 

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