(1899) Lost in the big city
František Kupka

Popis

Combined technique on paper – ink drawing and white painting on lithograph (around 1899), 37×57 cm, 56×75 cm (including frame), ink signature in the right lower corner
Origin: Antiquariat Paris.

Exhibited at the French Institute Praha, 14.9.-3.11.2016.

The highest price achieved in auction for Kupka´s oil on canvas – 78 million CZK in the year 2019, Galerie Kodl, Prague.
The highest price achieved in auction for Kupka´s graphic – 720 thousand CZK in the year 2018, auction house Sýpka, Prague.
The highest known price for Kupka´s graphics achieved in gallery sale – 500 thousand CZK in the year 2016, Prague.

At the turn of the century, Kupka was committed to express himself by his work to topical social and political problems. He contributed by his illustrations not only to anarchistic magazine L´Assiete au Beurre – L´Agent , which was part of satirical revue Belle Epoque and to English was being translated as Pork barrel, but also to number of other magazines – Cocorico for instance, likewise he designed various posters. He sympathized with poor, humiliated, exploited people – people from the margins of society. After all, Kupka himself was after his arrival to Paris, at the end of 19th century, quite often starving and doubted his future in the Art.
Lithograph with the name of operetta of that time shows tiny young girl with a little bag from which a certificate is peeping out, lost in a metropolis, where crowds of bourgeoisie attack her. Some artist stirs his glue in front of her, probable for the poor girl to get stuck well. The inspiration of Kupka was most probably his love – female tramp Gabriela from Montmartr. He met her in the same year; she was also the model to his famous painting L´Argent (Cash). Gabriela even moved to his home, but Kupka left her in the year 1903.

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