Emil Filla
Emil Filla (born April 4, 1882 in Chropyně , Moravia , † October 7, 1953 in Prague ) was a Czech painter, graphic artist, and sculptor. He is one of the most important representatives of Czech Cubism .
Life
Filla was born in 1882 as the son of a railway clerk in Chropyně station. The following year the family moved to Brno .
From 1903 Filla studied at the Academy of Fine Arts in Prague with Franz Thiele and Vlaho Bukovac . In 1904 he won first prize.
Filla's painting career began around 1905. That year he admired Edvard Munch's exhibition and founded the artist group Osma (The Eight) with other young artists . Under the influence of Munch, his art style slowly transitioned from impressionism to expressionism . The famous work The Reader by Dostoyevsky (1907) was written from this period . In 1909 Filla joined the Mánes Art Association .
In between he traveled through Europe ( Germany , Holland , France and Italy ) to study works by the old masters. In Italy he was particularly fascinated by the works of Giotto . Around 1910 Filla became acquainted with works by Braque , Gris and Picasso in Paris . Filla got to know Braque and Picasso personally through the Czech art historian Vincenc Kramář and cubism slowly became the basis of his further art.
From 1911 Filla stayed regularly in Paris and visited Picasso, Braque and Paul Cézanne , among others . In Venice , Filla dealt with Tintoretto , El Greco and other painters from the Baroque period. On March 27, 1913 Filla married Hana Krejčová, the daughter of the philosopher and psychologist František Krejčí . He later made friends with the Czech sculptor Otto Gutfreund .
In 1914 Filla had fled to Holland in exile because of the First World War . While the French avant-garde slowly moved away from Cubism, Filla remained loyal to it. He recorded the composition and selection of motifs from the Dutch still life. An example of this is still life with a map . In goldfish at the window in 1916, the influence of the Dutch artist group De Stijl easy to spot.
When the First World War ended in 1918, Filla came to Prague and started working as an artist again. In 1921 he created the cubist final work Woman with Carpet . In the same year he took part in the exhibition in the Walden Gallery in Berlin, as well as in the exhibition of the Free Secession . Picasso, Chagall, Braque, Oskar Kokoschka and Paul Klee were also represented at the exhibition of the Free Secession .
On August 29, 1937 Filla spoke in the anti-fascist assembly and was arrested on September 1, 1939 and interned in Dachau and Buchenwald concentration camps until 1945 . After he returned from Buchenwald to Prague on May 21, 1945, he was appointed professor at the Prague School of Applied Arts . In 1947 Filla painted a monumental work The Liberation of Buchenwald . In the last years of his life he devoted himself to landscape painting.
Emil Filla died in Prague on October 6, 1953 and was buried in the Střešovice cemetery.
Works (selection)
- 1907: Child in the Forest , National Gallery, Prague
- 1907: The Reader by Dostoyevsky , National Gallery in Prague
- 1910: The Good Samaritan , National Gallery, Prague
- 1911: Salome I , Gallery of Modern Art in Hradec Králové
- 1913: Cubist head (sculpture), National Gallery, Prague
- 1916: Goldfish at the window , Kodl Gallery, Prague
- 1921: Woman with Carpet , National Gallery, Prague
literature
- Johannes Urzidil : Czech contemporary painters: Čapek , Filla, Justitz , Špála , Zrzavý . Forum, Bratislava (Pressburg) 1936.
- Vojtěch Lahoda: 1909–1925 Cubism in Prague (exhibition catalog), Düsseldorf, 1991.
- Tomáš Vlček: Emil Filla (exhibition catalog), Prague, 2007.
Web links
- Literature by and about Emil Filla in the catalog of the German National Library
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Filla, Emil |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | Czech painter, printmaker, sculptor |
| DATE OF BIRTH | April 4, 1882 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Chropyně , Moravia |
| DATE OF DEATH | October 7, 1953 |
| Place of death | Prague |