karel nepraš

2nd of April 1932 - 5th of April 2002

The exhibition of Karel Nepraš at the Závodný Gallery would like to commemorate the author‘s ninetieth birthday through a selection of closed overview of his life work.

With the benefi t of time distance and the opportunity to perceive the development of the Czech art scene in relation and parallels to the context of European art, the work of Karel Nepraš appears to be exceptional. An artist, who liked to be surrounded by friends and colleagues, oftenly meeting them in the local pub, which became to be his second studio.

A person who was at the birth of several artistic groups /e.g. the Dadaist-surrealist group that was renamed Šmidrové in 1957, Křížovnická škola čistého humoru bez vtipu, 1963/, gradually developed into an unique and original artist. The strong authenticity of his authorial handwriting and the courage to search for new forms and materials, often primarily used for industrial production, freed his sculptures from the burden of obsolescence and allowed them to be perceived as actual and contemporary also nowadays.

The stimulating and opened political situation of the early 1960s helped to profi le Czech artists in two directions. One of them, despite the fading tradition of many surrealist groups, turned to fi gurative work /nowadays referred to as New Figuration/, the other sought a starting point in order, simplifi cation of the forms and moved towards geometric abstraction.

Karel Nepraš already in his early drawings, cartoons and book illustrations (e.g. works by F. Kafka, E. A. Poe/ chose the human fi gure as a medium for his message. Some drawings are like gags escalating into absurdity, comic grotesque, others map with anatomical precision the interconnection of muscular tissues and skeletal apparatus. The predilection for detail and the preference for the head and facial area as main motifs is already evident here.

The first sculptural works from early 1960s refer to the art of ancient cultures /figures of bulls, standing figures/. Simultaneously emerging relief sculptures in tin, copper or brass respond to the informel structures of the paintings of the Nepraš contemporaries /M. Medek, J. Koblasa/. All mentioned worked on the art objects in Jedovnice church, 1962.

The artist‘s sculptural skills culminate after 1964 in the statues of red fi gures and heads. They are made of wires covered with bandage material and red varnish. Frequent themes include dialogues between two individuals and reliefs of heads with a grinder /collectively presented at the exhibition Račte točit, Galerie V. Špály, Praha, 1970/. Both motifs paraphrase the impossibility of real communication. This may be due to the relational problems between people and also to the increasing political censorship.

At the turn of the 1960s and 1970s, Karel Nepraš began work with cast iron, metal screws, porcelain and other industrially processed materials. At this stage, a large-scale realization in architecture, Rodina, připravená k odjezdu, 1969, was created, as well as set of walking, sitting or standing fi gures done in late 1990s. Karel Nepraš openly declares his admiration for the sculptural work of Italian artist Alberto Giacommeti. He summed up his confession in a simple motto: Egypt – Giacommeti – Nepraš.

After 1980, monumental realisations were also created / např. Zeď nářků, 1989, Lázeň pro M. V., 1988, Míra zodpovědnosti I–V, 1993 / and groups of fi gures / Sněhurka a sedm trpaslíků, 1985–1991/.

Thanks to the use of technical porcelain and electroporcelain, in the 1990s Karel Nepraš also focused on landscape motifs. His collection of landscapes is greatly minimized, revealing the artist‘s connection to this material, which stems from his high school studies at the ceramics school in Prague, where he met his lifelong friend Bedřich Dlouhý.

Závodný Gallery would like to thank the family of Mr. Nepraš who participated in the preparation of the exhibition. The photographs of the objects were taken by Jan Slavík during the exhibition project at the Dox Centre for Contemporary Art in Prague. For this occasion Karel Nepraš monograph was also published.