Frantisek Foltyn

LOT 20 - FRANTI¿EK FOLTÝN CZECH, 1891-1976 IMPERIALISM (IMPERIALISMUS) signed and dated FOLTÝN K.P. 25 lowerright oil on canvas 120,000—180,000 GBP 115 by 84cm., 45¼ by 33in. Estate of Milan Heidenreich, GothenburgPurchased from the above on 2 May 1998 Passau, Graz, Gothenburg: Czech Cubism, Emil Filla and hisContemporaries, 1991, p. 195, illustrated in the catalogueGreenwich, Connecticut, Bruce Museum, The Pleasures of Collecting:Part II, Modern and Contemporary Art, 2003Birmingham, Alabama, Birmingham Museum of Art, Pražské noci /Prague Nights: Czech Modern Art from the Hascoe Collection,2007 Jiří Hlušička, František Foltýn, Prague, 1982, pp. 64-65, nos.42 and 43, illustratedJiří Hlušička, The Hascoe Collection of Czech Modern Art, Prague,2004, p. 28, mentioned; pp. 190-191, no. P27, catalogued; pp.104-105, pls. 88 and 89, illustratedBrno, The Moravian Gallery, František Foltýn, 2007, pp. 50, 54& 55, illustrated Foltýn was an important member of the Czech avant-garde. Afterhaving studied fine art in Prague, he undertook further study atthe Académie Julian and La Grande Chaumière in Paris. He was amember of various artistic groups, including the SVU Manés in Brnoand Cercle et Carré and Abstraction-Création in Paris, where helived from 1924 to 1934. One of the key influences on his earlierwork was the painting of Paul Cézanne: his oeuvre immediately after the First World War, while living in easternSlovakia and in the Ukraine, consisted of landscapes andstill-lives very much in a Cézannesque style. The present work was completed during Foltýn's long sojourn inParis and shows the artist having moved beyond Cézanne's influence.It depicts a tin man, holding a red scythe in his hands, withpartial words or phrases ('STAT', 'EDIKTATUR') superimposed uponhim and the semi-abstract background that suggests State control oroppression, while the numbers '14' and '18' echo the span of theFirst World War. Foltýn's tin woodman recalls a number of popularculture motifs current at the time, such as the figure in L. FrankBaum's The Wonderful Wizard of Oz , published in 1900 withillustrations by William Wallace Denslow, with its heartless TinWoodman that has often been read to have political meaning and hasits source deep in European folk art. The metallic, cylindrical forms of the tin man in the presentwork establish a strong visual link between Foltýn and FernandLéger, whose paintings in the mid- to late 1910s had been populatedby such metallic forms (fig. 1). The steel ship, steam billowingfrom its funnel, in the left foreground, the steel span of thebridge behind it and the pale volumes of the building-likestructure at the feet of Foltýn's tin man all suggest a creepingdehumanisation of the world: the imperialism of metal and machineover man and nature. The gold disc of the moon above the tin man'sleft shoulder heralds either a new dawn or the dusk ofcivilisation.Fig. 1, Fernand Léger, Composition, 1920, Private Collection ©ADAGP, Paris and DACS, London 2011

Frantisek Foltyn Královské Stachy near Susice 1891 – 1976Brno KOMPOSITION 1936. Watercolour and India ink over pencil onpaper. 41 x 54,3 cm (16 1/8 x 213/8 in.) Signed, inscribed and dated lower left: FoltynBr 1936. Subject to change - Please refer to paragraph9, no. 1 of our conditions of sale.