(1920) White rhythms
František Kupka

Popis

around the year 1920, woodcut on japan paper, 25×40 cm, 47×61 cm including frame, signed in the right lower corner of the print, stamp Kupka in the left lower corner

Origin: auction house Prague
A similar motif was published in the monograph by Ludmila Vachtová, František Kupka, Odeon, 1968.

Exhibited
French Institute Praha, 14.9.-3.11.2016

The highest price achieved in auction – 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.

Graphics and many Gouaches handling white lines on the black background belong to Kupka´s preparation period that preceded his significant manifesto of abstraction Four Stories of Black & White. This woodcut specifically has many features common with the gouache White Rhythms on Black from the year 1920 – published in the monograph by Ludmila Vachtová; in auctions it is being offered also under the name Composition only. Kupka is in his experiments with the Line only sporadically as sparing as in this woodcut– this graphic resembles experimental music record, which was used in the fine-art in practise only much later – in the 1960s. Kupka´s Line is – in contrast with other abstractions – less structured and it gives the impression of being almost coincidental, as if the author really was directly reacting to immediate sound of his surroundings – music or a bird singing.

Další informace