Jan Zrzavý (1890–1977)

Jan Zrzavý is regarded as one of the great masters of twentieth-century Czech painting, yet among his contemporaries he remains an unmistakable artistic individual. His works, imbued with lyricism, tenderness and melancholy and immediately recognisable for their distinctive style, emerged from a unique strand of the Czech avant-garde. Today they rank among the most highly valued works on the Czech art market.

 

Zrzavý studied drawing under Karel Reisner, Vladimír Županský and František Ženíšek Jr. at a private art school before enrolling at the Academy of Arts, Architecture and Design in Prague in 1907, where he studied under Professor Emanuel Dítě. After two years, however, he was expelled from the school. Over the following years, he repeatedly attempted, unsuccessfully, to gain admission to the Academy of Fine Arts in Prague, eventually turning to self-directed study. As early as 1910, he co-founded the independent artistic association Sursum together with Josef Váchal, Jan Konůpek and František Kobliha. Like Zrzavý himself, these artists embraced Symbolist themes and drew inspiration from Symbolism, occultism and, in some cases, an intensely spiritual vision of art. An important stimulus for the young painter came through his acquaintance with the critic Miloš Marten, whom he met after joining the Mánes Union of Fine Artists. Marten encouraged him to study nature through the drawings and paintings of the Old Masters, leading Zrzavý towards a lasting fascination with the Italian Renaissance and the masters of the Italian Quattrocento. During his earliest Symbolist period, his paintings often expressed visions of unfulfilled erotic longing, reflecting both the psychological complexity of his personality and his sexual orientation.

 

Towards the end of World War I, Zrzavý became closely associated with Josef Čapek, Václav Špála, Vlastislav Hofman, Otakar Marvánek and Rudolf Kremlička, with whom he co-founded the artists’ group Tvrdošíjní (The Obstinate). During this period, his work developed the simplified forms, lyrical atmosphere and dreamlike softness that became its defining characteristics. He increasingly drew upon Classical and archaising influences, while the symbolic significance of colour assumed a central role in his painting. At the same time, he produced numerous drawings and frontispieces for works by Czech and international authors, as well as stage designs for productions at the National Theatre in Prague.

 

Throughout the 1920s and 1930s, Zrzavý travelled extensively in Italy, Belgium, England and France, renting his own studio in Paris in 1924. Landscape became his principal source of inspiration, and he was particularly captivated by the elusive beauty of the rocky coastline of Brittany. By the mid-1930s, he had abandoned his earlier pastel, poetic palette in favour of richer, more saturated colours. During World War II, his landscapes came to embody not only themes of death and hope but also an increasing sense of destiny and balladic drama. After returning to Czechoslovakia, he served as Professor of Painting and Composition at the Faculty of Arts of Palacký University in Olomouc between 1947 and 1950. During the 1950s, his style became more concentrated and restrained, drawing above all upon remembered landscapes transformed through memory into poetic visions.