Miloš urbásek 

28. july 1932 - 14. july 1988

Miloš Urbásek is one of the key representatives of the Czechoslovak art of the second half of the 20th century. The exhibition in Závodný Gallery commemorates the artist´s 85th birthday by presenting to the public the artist life work in its integrity, emphasising the structured development of each stage of his process of creation.

The artwork of Miloš Urbásek has evolved in direct interaction with the formation of modern art in Western European countries. His journey towards a minimal art and monochromic expression was in line with the works of the artists of the group ZERO /Günther Uecker, Mack Heinz, Bernard Aubertin…/ and New Tendencies. Considering the Czech historical context, where the contact with modern trends was rather limited, the work of Miloš Urbásek appears as quite pioneering.

Artists early works were influenced by Cubism. In the early 60´s he discovered structural painting, which he approached in a very reductive way. This has lead his further development towards monochrome expression. In 1961 he co-organized the first Confrontation in Slovakia in the studio of Josef Jankovič in Bratislava. These were informal gatherings between students and artists of New Trends, which were characterized by a propensity towards geometric abstraction and so-called New Sensitivity.

The exhibition covers this period by displaying the series of acrylic paintings with the themes of graphemes which the author often divided into repetitive segments. The final signs and their repetitive parts were mostly created in basic colour combinations (black - white, red - blue) which, in the architectural space of the gallery, had a strong visual effect on the viewers.

The search of new possibilities and relationships between the viewer and the area of the picture is further developed in the series of paintings from the 70´s in which the artist works with the motif of a circle and its segments.

The last period of Miloš Urbásek´s artwork is marked by a very sensitive, almost intimate, cycles of pastels and acrylic paintings. Minimized scriptural records / often just simple shards / are arranged in rows one above other and cover the bottom layer of the painting. These meditative canvases and pastel drawings were created in the period of isolation, as the artist was no longer allowed to be presented on exhibitions.

Miloš Urbásek works are represented in collections of Czech, Slovak and foreign, especially German, cultural institutions. He has received several awards, including the prestigious Folkwagng-Press Preis in Essen / 1967 /. Many well respected European galleries featured Miloš Urbásek's, including, for example, the gallery Teufel (Germany), the gallery Hoffmann (Germany), the Raymonde Cazenave gallery (France).