DOI issue:
Nr. 2
DOI article:Prahl, Roman: Bohemians in Prague in the latter half of the nineteenth century
DOI Page / Citation link:https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.51715#0161
changes in art, science and technology were to extend
to a transformation of society.
František Kupka can be seen as an example of
the compromise, albeit a precarious one, reached
between the avant-garde and the bourgeoisie in
the twentieth Century, which applied in Prague too.
Kupka, the co-founder of abstract art, had a patron
in the industrialist Jindřich Waldes.16 A businessman
of Czech Jewish origins, Waldes collected Kupka’s
art for many years, and in 1912 Kupka designed the
logo for his company Koh-i-noor, helping it achieve
international success.
Kupka had grown up during the last thirty years
of the nineteenth Century, when Czech artists had
only limited and generally negative expérience of the
art market, and so rather than the anonymity of the
market they often preferred a traditional relationship
with a particular art lover or patron. The examples
presented above indicate the changeability of indi-
vidual artists’ opinions and their ability to operáte in
various codes of communication. They demonstrate
the complicated concurrence of the émancipation
10. František Kupka: VotingRights (Parti), before 1905. Repro: Rudé
květy, 5, 1905 — 1906.
of art from traditional norms and the expansion of
middle-class society in one of the nationalities of
the time. For Czech society in the latter half of the
nineteenth Century it is impossible to say anything
more definite than that “bohemian” art and “bour-
geois” society needed one another, in ways that were
both positive and negative.
Dnglish translation by A. Dean
16 For a detailed account of the relationship between the two,
see ŠIMON, P.: Kupka — Waldes. Malíř a jeho sběratel [Kupka
- Waldes. The Painter and His Collector]. Praha 2001.
153
to a transformation of society.
František Kupka can be seen as an example of
the compromise, albeit a precarious one, reached
between the avant-garde and the bourgeoisie in
the twentieth Century, which applied in Prague too.
Kupka, the co-founder of abstract art, had a patron
in the industrialist Jindřich Waldes.16 A businessman
of Czech Jewish origins, Waldes collected Kupka’s
art for many years, and in 1912 Kupka designed the
logo for his company Koh-i-noor, helping it achieve
international success.
Kupka had grown up during the last thirty years
of the nineteenth Century, when Czech artists had
only limited and generally negative expérience of the
art market, and so rather than the anonymity of the
market they often preferred a traditional relationship
with a particular art lover or patron. The examples
presented above indicate the changeability of indi-
vidual artists’ opinions and their ability to operáte in
various codes of communication. They demonstrate
the complicated concurrence of the émancipation
10. František Kupka: VotingRights (Parti), before 1905. Repro: Rudé
květy, 5, 1905 — 1906.
of art from traditional norms and the expansion of
middle-class society in one of the nationalities of
the time. For Czech society in the latter half of the
nineteenth Century it is impossible to say anything
more definite than that “bohemian” art and “bour-
geois” society needed one another, in ways that were
both positive and negative.
Dnglish translation by A. Dean
16 For a detailed account of the relationship between the two,
see ŠIMON, P.: Kupka — Waldes. Malíř a jeho sběratel [Kupka
- Waldes. The Painter and His Collector]. Praha 2001.
153