The exhibition is similar in its format to the presentation of Oskar Kokoschka’s Moravian Ostrava II, which was seen by 13 000 visitors of the House of Art in Ostrava during 2010. The painting Shape of Blue (1913) was for a long time part of Jindřich Waldes’s collection. This might be one of the last opportunities to see the painting, before it becomes part of a private collection. Adolf Loos Apartment and Gallery representative has prepared an auction of this painting for April. Shape of Blue will be accompanied by other Kupka’s works, his only bronze statue – a portrait of his wife Eugenies from 1929. 

‘The presentation of Kupka’s painting is not a crave for sensational event, but an effort of the gallery to introduce a first-rate work of modern abstract art to the public. The Gallery of Fine Arts in Ostrava has several Kupka’s works in its collection, although only one graphic series entitled Four Stories of Black and White from 1926 as a representative of his abstract period’, explains Jiří Jůza and adds that ‘the gallery has recently exhibited Kupka’s abstract works from private collections at the exhibition Black Suns / Reversed Side of Modernity 1927–1945. Shape of Blue is, in relation to the other works from 1930’s, a highly unique piece’.  

Kupka’s work has been attracting more and more attention. In recent past Kupka’s name has not been mentioned only in relation to the auction in progress, but also in connection with Meda Mládková. The most valuable collection of this author is administered by the National Gallery in Prague.  

Jiří Jůza

Curator: Jiří Jůza