Gouache on paper. Featuring two nudes. Signed Kupka on the lower right corner. Attributed to Frantisek Kupka (1871-1957, Czech). 29.5 x 21 cm (11.6 x 8.3 inches). PROVENANCE: Southern Ontario estate

Frantisek Kupka (1871-1957) was a Czech painter and graphic artist who pioneered the abstract movement Orphism. Interested in cosmic forces and the occult, Kupka strove towards the free associative properties of inherent to music though the exploration on color and form. “The creative ability of an artist is manifested only if he succeeds in transforming the natural phenomena into 'another reality,’” he once reflected. “This part of the creative process as an independent element, if conscious and developed, hints at the possibility of creating a painting.” Born on September 23, 1871 in Opocno, Austro-Hungarian Empire, Kupka received his formal training at the Prague Art Academy and the Akademie der Bildenden Künste in Vienna. Moving to Paris, he briefly attended the Académie Julian and École des Beaux-Arts before falling into the milieu of the Section d’Or artists. During his career, his work transitioned from figurative paintings such as his self-portrait The Yellow Scale (1907), to the theory based abstraction seen in Disks of Newton (1912). In 1931, along with Hans Arp and Jean Hélion, he co-founded the group Abstraction-Création. The artist continued to exhibit in Europe and the United States throughout the following decades. Kupka died on June 24, 1957 in Puteaux, France. Today, his works are held in the collections of The Museum of Modern Art in New York, the Musée d’Orsay in Paris, the Museum of Fine Arts in Houston, and the Art Institute of Chicago, among others.

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